


A collection of Fables and Romances

by Llama_Goddess



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Cecaelia Sans, Cheshire Cat Sans, Domestic Fluff, F/F, F/M, Fantasy, Fluff, I'll add more as I go, Magic, Mountains, Naga Sans/Reader, Possessive Sans (Undertale), Reader Is Not Chara (Undertale), Reader Is Not Frisk (Undertale), Reader-Insert, Romantic Fluff, Shapeshifter Sans/Reader, Shapshifter Sans, Siren Sans/Reader, all the fucking fluff bro, definitely fantasy, hello everyone and welcome to the pinnacle of self indulgency, i want a merboyfriend, it's been a while since i tagged, lamia sans, ocean man take me by the han-, that tag is basically a necessity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:42:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23936287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llama_Goddess/pseuds/Llama_Goddess
Summary: A little spot for my shameless Sans x Reader oneshots and momentary inspirations to gather! Particularly, of the magical kind. Nagas, sirens, winged monstrosities, cursed creatures, fantastical beasts of all shapes and sizes... maybe even a normal skeleton once or twice, if you’re lucky! Canon is a speck in the rear-view mirror and we're all just here to have fun.So just sit back, relax... and enjoy the mess that is me being totally self indulgent.
Relationships: Sans (Horrorfell)/Reader, Sans (Horrortale)/Reader, Sans (Underfell)/Reader, Sans (Undertale)/Reader, im out here living life bro
Comments: 228
Kudos: 889





	1. Flood - (HT! Naga Sans x Reader)

**Author's Note:**

> Wanted to give Skull (HT Sans) a bit of love, and inspiration struck me in its typical 2am fashion... so now I gotta write a naga minific about him, obviously.  
> My dumb ass has been experiencing hell’s greatest art block, turns out all I needed to do was write about fantasy boyfriends

You’d heard tales of beasts in the mountains.

Everyone had. Of course there were tales... there were few things on Earth quite like mountains. The ocean had them defeated in vastness but the ocean was constantly moving, constantly shifting and retreating and advancing. It was never the same body of water from moment to moment. That was the very nature of water, after all; you couldn’t _truly_ conquer something that, in an instant, was something else.

... But mountains? Mountains were _always_ there. The mountain you stared up at was the exact same that generations before you had stared up at. The same sheer rock faces, the same cloud-bathed looming silhouette, the same impossibly great trees that turned into collections of tiny specks in the high distance and peeled away in freckles at the peak to reveal the icy cap. Something so static, so irremovable... so constant and inescapable... so... easily accessible...

... And yet somehow, so completely impossible to know or conquer.

There was just so _much_ mountain. Anything could be lurking in those thick forests... anything at all.

...

The majority of your village was situated in a neat raised valley, between two peaks that had embraced millions of years ago. It almost resembled a river; a few stray houses trickling down from the steeper areas into the bustled collection in the grassland below. It was far from impossible to get to, considering all the new roads that were being laid day by day... but who would bother to come all the way up there? 

It was, from the outside, picturesque. But everyone knew that thick forests, high mountains and less humans...

... Well, it was the perfect place for the worst kinds of monsters. The _intelligent_ ones.

...

You’d been asked by one of the village shopkeepers to bring groceries to a woman who lived in the highest house on the mountain, a pretty decent walk away. When she was younger she’d make the trip with her husband and children with complete ease, legs trained on the same steep forested path for decades. But now that old age and sickness was beginning to creep up on her, her husband was dead and her children had left the mountains for the city life... concerned friends and villagers found it _much_ better to have someone bring the lady’s supplies to her and save her the danger. There’d been talk of bringing her down the mountain a little, into the centre of town, where people could keep an eye on her...

... But you knew Ms. Fephar. She would die in that little house she was born in.

(Your mother always said that the homes far up the mountain bred the strangest kinds of people. The ones who, for reasons best left unknown, sought distance from the rest of humanity.)

...

It wasn’t like you’d never bought the old woman her groceries before. In fact, you were almost _always_ the one for the job, desperate to get out of the house for once- ‘young legs and a sharp mind will make the journey a breeze’, the shopkeep said. Who could say no to such a scenic trail? A garden-edged road up the mountain that melted away into a rocky, almost-overgrown trail surrounded by skyscraping evergreens that only stayed visible and trodden because of your weekly journeys.

No, it wasn’t like you’d never been up and down before.

You’d just never been up and down in that kind of _rain._

It was coming down in _sheets,_ piercing through the thick tree canopy, dripping off pine needles, drumming against every piece of foliage on the forest floor and turning the usually scenic trail into splashes of wet mud and rock. By the time you arrived at Ms Fephar’s door, grocery bag tucked under one arm and the other holding your jacket over your head in a fitful attempt to cover your already plastered hair, you were soaked in mud from your ankles to your knees and dripping from every corner. 

“You must come in, girl.” The old lady said, voice barely audible over the sound of the rain pounding against your jacket. “It’s not safe out there.”

Her little thatched home did look delightfully warm and bright inside those worn brick walls. She was wearing a cosy sweater, too, and she looked so dry, and...

...

But no. You grinned at her, passed her the soaked groceries, and said some stupid shit about needing to head home before the paths flooded.

As if they weren’t flooded already.

It quickly became apparent to you, once the sweet old cottage’s bright windows vanished into the trees, that the journey down was _much_ harder than the journey up. At least then you’d been able to just dig your heels in and march up, one foot after the other... the steepness of the path and the slick, waterlogged earth, the sharp stones you kicked up with every heel flick and the pouring rain blinding you and chilling you to the bone...

... You should’ve just stayed at Ms Fephar’s, and ignored your fear of getting her wonderful ornate carpets dirty.

You barely registered the slip. Most of the journey down thus far had been slipping- holding onto tree branches or clumps of slightly more solid dirt as you slid with all the grace of a dancing cow.

What you _did_ register, however, was your face hitting sodden foliage and your heels going over your head as you began an endless fall.

\---

...

... Warmth.

...

You were surrounded by something warm. You were leant up against it, and more of it was laid over your lap and lower legs...

... You let out a tiny whimper and tried to curl up, curl closer, but the thing over your lap was so thick and heavy you couldn’t move your legs at all, and as soon as you asked your muscles to move they cried out in pain. It felt like... a whole person was lying over you... your head lolled to the side...

... and the jolt from slipping over onto your side startled you awake.

...

It definitely took your eyes a few moments to adjust. It was dark, incredibly dark, you couldn’t see more than 10ft away from you...

...

But it wasn’t what was _away_ from you that began to confuse your newly awoken mind even further. 

You were sat down, and whatever it was you were sat on felt very giving and soft. There was a thick blanket around your shoulders that’d slipped as you started awake- your back was pressed against something very large, very solid and very warm, with what felt like a few pillows placed on top of it so you had more to lean against.

... And... the thing across your legs...

... It was thicker than your own body, _long,_ and very softly glowing a dull blue. You blinked, nonplussed... you subconsciously reached out and pressed your hand against it, silhouetting the extremity. It was warm to the touch, like a black stone that’d been soaking in the sunshine... but it felt like you were running your palm over something akin to a muscle. You visually followed the thick glowing thing through heavy lashes as it went over your thighs, did a u-turn, went over your lower legs again, trailed off... and looped back around again a few metres away before ending by your feet. It got smaller as it reached the end... and as your vision focused, it looked almost like the massive scaled body of a sna...

...

_... A snake._

**“... you’re** **_... awake...”_ **

...

Your breath caught in your throat; just as a breath washed over your face, carrying stray wisps of hair with it, so long and deep that whoever owned it must’ve had lungs the size of train carriages.

That wasn’t a human voice. That _couldn’t_ be a human voice. Human voices didn’t _go_ that deep, so deep it caressed your insides in the best and worst way. Human voices didn’t get that low and soft, low and silky, human voices didn’t have a hiss-like rush to every word...

You turned your face toward the sound...

...

The first thing you saw was a ring of blood red light that illuminated a massive _skeletal_ face just _inches_ from your own. You let in a tiny, panicked silent breath, pulling away a little to see more- yes, it was a skeleton. The eye sockets were wide enough for you to put your whole fist in- one was lax, drooped, empty of everything but darkness, and the other was rounded and filled with that crimson glow from that single burning ‘eye’; a thick, brightly glowing ring floating in the socket that seemed to _constrict_ as it surveyed your face. Like a cat’s pupil. More of that dull blue glow was filtering out of gaps between unnaturally huge teeth... razor sharp, affixed to a jaw so wide and heavy you were _certain_ he could crush your bones in his maw like carrot sticks... 

Th-the expression... you were _convinced_ it was hunger...

But before your lethargic body could muster the energy to scream, to cry, to _panic,_ something else that was warm was pressed insistently into your (subconsciously) raised hands. You looked down at it, tearing your eyes from the terrible face, barely able to make out the silhouette of a mug filled with a rippling liquid in the dim light.

... As well as the silhouette of the hand pressing the cup against you. Skeletal too, easily twice the size of your own.

“drink.” His voice (it _sounded_ male... but could you be so sure?) was low, and soft... as if he was attempting to quell the fear he already knew was there just from staring into his eyes. ... Eye? ... Eye... _socket...?_

“don’t move. you’re hurt. badly.”

... You opened your mouth, trying to make some kind of sound to ground yourself into whatever was happening right now. You didn’t understand, nothing made sense, you tried to force yourself to look back at that awful face again as if to convince yourself it was really there and not some horrible grim reaper ghost, w-why was... where were...

_What happened to me...!?_

“shhh.” His voice was _entangled_ with a _hiss._ He gently but insistently pushed the mug toward your face. Without realising you were even doing it, your body seemingly still trapped in its sleepy confused automatic state, the rim of the cup met your lips and you swallowed.

...

It was so _warm._ You didn’t even notice the tiny sound of happiness that left your body, shoulders unwinding and mind temporarily forgetting everything- the liquid was hot and sweet, like tea with a little too much honey... heat spread from your core outwards as you continued to drink gratefully, fingers and toes and scalp tingling pleasantly. You barely registered the fizzing sound of someone striking a match...

... When you lowered the (empty) mug from your lips and opened your eyes again, the room was now illuminated with a gentle flickering orange glow.

... 

... It was a cave. You blinked- that explained how it was so warm, and dry, and quiet.

... But... it’d clearly been decorated for someone to live in. There were oil lamps fastened onto hooks that’d been embedded into the rocky wall. A decently sized tapestry depicting a beautiful winding tree was hung against one wall, and you could now see that what you were laying on wasn’t a mattress- it was various blankets and animal furs, thrown into a huge, messy pile. There was even a crudely fashioned door in the wall furthest from you, the shadows dancing and stretching across the grooves in the wood... it must lead further into the cave...

...

And then you turned to your company, as if remembering he was there. He’d lit one of the oil lamps close to the two of you.

...

_Stars help me._

You’d never seen a creature like him before. You’d read books about naga, child eating monsters that were half human, half snake. 

But he was _nothing_ like the books. 

He was absolutely _gigantic-_ you had no idea how big he was. You hazarded a guess at... 20, 25 feet..? But either he was clearly large enough to completely encircle you multiple times, given that not only were you leaning up against his tail... but as you’d seen before the giant mass (no wonder it’d felt like touching a muscle, it was a snake body; _one gigantic muscle)_ was also looped over your body twice, off the pile of furs and back on again, the very tip just by your ankle. And that wasn’t including the part of his body _he_ was resting on. He absolutely dwarfed you in every sense of the word; which explained why the sections of his tail going over you were so thick and heavy you couldn’t move your body from the knees down.

... But that wasn’t even the most different part. 

He wasn’t half human. Your eyes weren’t playing panicked tricks on you earlier, he was indeed half _skeleton._ He seemed vaguely humanoid in shape on the upper body but there were bones you were _certain_ didn’t exist on a human skeleton; a palm-like bone, a piece on his elbow where the ulna and radius met, giant plate-like bones on the back of his ribcage. His bones were impossibly thick and heavily set, littered with scars and marks and nicks and grooves- his spine was like a _tree trunk._

Just his upper body was the size of most of you.

... And his face. You could see it much better in the light, now he wasn’t illuminated only by his own glowing body. There was the face you’d seen moments before; crooked sockets, one empty and one spilling out light and magic, an overfilled mouth of knife teeth.

But now, in full view... you could see that his skull sported a massive, jagged, _ugly_ hole in the side. A gruesome injury, that perhaps that was the cause of his... eyes.

...

_... a one-eyed, massive half skeleton half blue snake man..._

_..._

_Who has you in his den._

“... do you...” That single light in his eye was going to swallow you whole. There was something so... _unsettling_ about the fact that he didn’t blink once. You couldn’t look away. Was this how you were going to die? Eaten by a monster? “... remember... what... happened... to you?”

...

You swallowed.

_If he wanted to kill me, I wouldn’t stand a chance. He could squeeze his body once and, depending on whether my organs or my spine gave out first, I’d be gone in an instant or in a moment. He could roll over and crush me to death, or suffocate me if he decided to stretch it out a little. Do nagas like to play with their food?_

_If he bit my neck with that maw he’d take most of my shoulder with it._

...

The empty mug in your hands was starting to cool down now.

...

_But..._

_... If he wanted to kill me..._

_... Wouldn’t I already be dead...?_

Your throat felt as if a snake of its own had wound around it, forcing your voice to come out in a hoarse, terrified whisper.

_If he wanted to kill me, why am I on a pile of furs in his cave, wrapped in a blanket, being given hot liquids?_

“I...” Barely audible, completely unable to tear your eyes from his sockets, so far above you. “I-I fell?”

_Why hasn’t he already killed me?_

_Why is he looking at me like that?_

... You remembered your teeth slamming down on your tongue as you rolled and rolled, down and down, the wind knocked out of you and hair whipping everywhere. Water in your eyes and mouth, ears, up your nose, wet grass and twigs and stones in your hair and going down your shirt, rocks cutting your legs and face, arms desperately coming in to give some kind of protection as you kept rolling, thumping and thudding over branches and roots and grass and leaves.

... You vaguely recalled curling in on yourself when your body finally came to a stop, a whimpering, shivering, numb little pile of bruises.

A ragdoll that’d been thrown down the world’s longest flight of stairs.

...

The more you started to think, the more you started to remember. You immediately looked down at your clothes, that should’ve been soaked through- they were flecked with spots of mud and what could’ve been dried blood but they were bone dry to the touch. As was your hair, your skin...

... And now that you thought about it... hadn’t his snake body been glowing before? It had been pleasantly hot to the touch...

...

...

You looked back up at him, back up at his face, lips parting.

“... D-did you...” You couldn’t believe you were asking this. Your heart was _pounding._ “Did you rescue me?”

His hungry expression suddenly didn’t seem quite so hungry, now that you thought about it. No... now you were looking, actually _looking,_ not just absorbing the immediate details your prey mind was seeing in a predator... 

... he looked relieved.

As soon as your question seemed to process in his head, his dagger teeth crooked up at the corners a little into a tiny smile, crimson ring-eye dilating ever-so-slightly.

He nodded.

...

Just like that, he didn’t seem quite so big any more. 

“... y-you were hurt. and cold. lying... in the rain.” The hiss in his voice had become more like a careful purr as he lowered the upper part of his body more, bringing himself closer to your level... perhaps to make himself seem less threatening? His words were slow, deliberate... you wondered if his gigantic teeth or that nasty head injury made speech difficult.“just... brought you in. dried you. kept you warm... until you woke up.”

Your heart skipped a beat. “... Is... is _that_ why you were glowing?”

... His grin widened a bit, seemingly glad you understood, and he nodded.

“magic... is warm.”

...

You couldn’t describe how much tension and fear left your body in a single moment. 

Seeing this giant skeleton naga monster who you _thought_ was going to eat you smile so genuinely and somewhat enthusiastically when you realised he just wanted to help was like someone pulling the plug from your brimming sink of anxiety. This beast, this _creature..._ he’d scooped you out of the mud and rain, had taken you into his cave den, dried your soaking freezing body, let you sleep on what seemed to be _his bed_ with a comfortable blanket over you, looped his coils over your body and used his own (probably precious) energy to keep you safely warmed until you awoke.

He wasn’t going to kill you.

_You weren’t going to die._

“Th-thank you.” You choked out, raw with emotion. “Thank you. So much.”

...

... His cheekbones, littered with miniscule scratches and marks... started to go... blue?

You blinked, unsure if you were seeing properly. No, they were definitely going blue... Like someone had leant close and dusted the bone with a soft ultramarine powder. It couldn’t be a trick of the light...

“s-skull.” He blurted, crimson eye finally breaking contact with you, darting away. He looked... nervous? “my name... it’s skull.”

...

You gave him your name too, voice significantly more relaxed than before; and you just couldn’t help it. You instinctively held your hand out to him.

...

He stared at it, for a moment. As if surprised you’d want to touch him.

...

... He took it, hand completely swallowing your own, giving it an awkward shake. His grin was so soft and happy that it didn’t matter how broken his face was- he was, undeniably, actually pretty adorable.

“... It’s nice to meet you.” You said, allowing yourself to smile too.

“... nice to... meet you.”

\---

Skull took you home that night, carrying you like a princess in his giant arms with a total effortlessness that took your break away. He told you he knew the risk of going into the village, and it was a risk he was willing to take if it meant guaranteeing getting you back without incident. 

That made your cheeks go as red as his had been blue, unable to stop yourself from holding onto his neck a little tighter as he moved through the trees with a silence, speed and grace that was seemingly completely inversely proportional to his size. When he’d talked about taking you back to the village you’d been _really_ worried, but... as he moved across the earth so softly he could’ve been mistaken for a passing housecat, you knew there was no way he’d be found. The only way anybody could know of his existence was if someone had heard your soft whispered directions to him over the gentle wind.

He placed you down in front of your garden window, and you made your way in, surprised at how even just placing your hands on the windowsill made a louder sound than all of Skull’s movements over the course of the journey. Your arms _ached_ when you tried to pull yourself up, still recovering from your fall, and he had to give you a gentle boost by placing his massive hand under your foot... eventually, you made it into the house, feeeling slightly embarrassed at your clumsiness compared to him. 

As soon as you were inside, you scrambled to your feet and turned back around, leaning the upper half of your body out of the window to speak to him.

“Skull?” You asked, absolutely hating how loud your whisper sounded in the empty night.

His eyelight glowed such a serene red... you didn’t know the colour red could _be_ so calming. And when he spoke, his deep voice was so soft, and low... like he was speaking _only_ for you. “... yeah?” 

“... How did you...” Why did he look so... so handsome in the night? In a strange, otherworldly way, with the moon glittering off his scales? Was there something wrong with you? “H-how did you find me? After I fell.”

... There was that blue on his cheekbones again. He took a little breath.

“...i-i see you on the path... every week. taking... taking the groceries up.” He fidgeted with his phalanges. “and, when you didn’t come back down, and the rain was so heavy, i... i just knew something... was wrong...”

...

...

The admission that this giant skeleton naga had been watching you for potentially _months_ should’ve frightened you to the very core. 

A few hours ago, it might have.

“Maybe next week you should escort me up.” You said, voice almost playful. “For safety’s sake, of course.”

...

He let out a small, hissing chuckle, eye socket crinkling in the corner.

“... yeah. safety.”

... 

There was a _thud_ behind you, somewhere inside the house. You turned away, momentarily filling with panic, wondering if someone had come over to check if you were there, or maybe even had heard you speaking with Skull. You spun back to tell him to run... well, not _run,_ slither...

... But by the time you turned back to your garden, he was gone, the only sign he’d ever been there being the indent of his tail in the grass.

\---

Your mother always said that the homes far up the mountain bred the strangest kinds of people. The ones who, for reasons best left unknown, sought distance from the rest of humanity.

If only she knew why you purchased that cottage for two, so far from the rest of town, but so close to a secret cave in a tightly packed grove of evergreens.

...

... But was it really so strange to love a monster who loved you back?


	2. Shark - (UF! Siren Sans x Reader)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've been in a really oceany mood lately... absolutely aka-indulgence's fault. Got me wanting a mershark boyfriend... could you _imagine_ the late-night swims?

You knew the water would be cold today.

It was relatively calm, with the only waves being small and far between, lapping gently against the rock you were stood on as you pulled your arms through your wetsuit, zipping it up the back with only a little difficulty. The ocean was crystal clear... when you peered down into it, you could see the bright streaks of sand metres below you, the looming dark rocks, the rippling shadows of seaweed rocking back and forth in the gentle current. 

It was always at its coldest when it was clear. No tiny floating particles to hold the warmth from the day’s sunshine. 

Speaking of the sun- it was starting to slip toward the horizon now; the speckled clouds around it had been all but set alight in a golden haze. You always aimed to be out in the evenings, after the casual swimmers and tourists had abandoned the beaches- at this time of day, when the sun was bleeding warmer colours into the sky and the quaint cafes had closed, the only people who entered the water were local surfers who knew how to respect the small strip of sea they’d been allowed to enter. Who knew to keep to the beach and its far more forgiving waters.

Unlike you. You’d only been on the beach to walk across it, waving at a few of the guys and girls in the ocean you knew from around town and sometimes even pausing to see if the wave they caught carried them the length of the beach or if it unceremoniously dumped them in a barrel of foam and salt. 

Today, however, you’d been too excited to stop.

You left them to their waves and clambered onto the rocks at the end of the bay, walking further and further around the cliff face, hopping from rock to rock, until you were entirely out of sight of the surfers and the beach.

Until you were in silent waters. 

... And once you found your usual perch, a flat, smooth rock with enough room to put your stuff down, you were good to lay out your towel and get changed.

From experience you knew it was better to just jump straight in instead of wasting time getting nervous about the possible temperature or lowering yourself in slowly. In the winter, you’d  _ never _ jump straight in without getting accustomed first in case it was so cold you gave yourself a heart attack... but at this time of year, in the late summer, there shouldn’t be any problems. You stood, tying your hair back, stretching your arms to limber and warm up inside the slightly restrictive neoprene. You had your wetsuit so you could stay in longer than usual, your  _ new things _ that you were excited to use... and the top half of a diving mask around your neck.

(... You wouldn’t use the mask until a little later. You always preferred for the first dive to be without it, just to get that sense of freedom that came with the saltwater rushing over your exposed face. But later, if you wanted to see  _ him  _ under the surface, a diving mask would be necessary.)

You rolled your shoulders, took a breath, held it... 

... And, using the rock as a push-off point, jumped and dove under the surface. 

You were right, it was pretty cold; saltwater flowed over you, hitting your hands and face the hardest, and a little bit rushed down the back of the wetsuit and over your sensitive spine- but it wasn’t quite as cold as it was a few days ago. It was nowhere  _ near  _ as bad as you expected, and actually quite nice... refreshing... even under the surface, you couldn’t help but relax.

As soon as your head had gone under, your entire body knew where it was.

_ Home. _

... And that was when you could finally try out your new thing.

_ Flippers! _

They were tightly secured to your feet and decently long- just not  _ extra _ long, like diving fins. You didn’t want to accidentally kick the reef. The added power to your feet meant that just a few slow kicks easily drove you forward and downward, straightening up to glide along the bottom, silence surrounding you. You opened your eyes despite the light salt sting, peering at the white-green sand below, the endless saphire distance, the looming life-covered rocks on your sides, the rippling mirror surface above... it was blurry and distorted to your land-accustomed human eyes and that gave it a strange, almost dreamlike appearance. You softly pushed your hands into the sand, disturbing it and sending up a tiny puff of silt, a bubble of excitement in your chest... you’d  _ never  _ managed to swim this quickly on one breath!

You couldn’t wait to show him.

Eventually, you recognised the feeling of the need for oxygen starting to creep up on you. So you pushed the seafloor again with both arms, this time propelling yourself upward, each kick down powerful enough to send a small current that disturbed even  _ more  _ sand. You felt as if your usually clumsy human body was, for once, actually  _ meant  _ to be in the ocean.

You broke the surface, breath coming out in a rush. It was immediately so much louder; birds, wind, waves... you gave your eyes a quick wipe to get the worst of the salt out, sighing to yourself, instinctively treading water.

...

You turned around, glancing at the uncovered rock you changed on and spotting your brightly coloured towel, taking note of how far you’d gone in one dive.

...

A shiver.

... You could always tell when he was near. 

Everything would go  _ quiet. _

The tiny glinting silhouettes of fish under the surface, instead of weaving through the seaweed (and sometimes curiously approaching your legs) had all vanished; darting into their cracks and crevices. A shadow had fallen over the whole reef... Everything seemed to, much like you had a few moments earlier, take a deep breath in and  _ hold  _ it.

...

_ “sweetheart... _ baby... my moon wrasse, my precious lil’ bipedal bundle of love and joy... i gotta ask you somethin’...”

You didn’t even feel the current shift as he approached, you didn’t see a ripple out of place, you didn’t hear a single splash out of time with the waves against the nearby rocks. But immediately, you felt strong, thick skeletal arms close around you from behind, and a heavy drawl purr directly into your ear. You couldn’t help but wonder how long he’d been lurking just out of sight.

“what the  _ fuck  _ are you wearing on your feet?”

...

You giggled, spinning in his comfortable hold to face him and looping your arms around his shoulders, chest to chest.

Just seeing his grin made you feel so much better, his glowing red eyelights, forgetting about everything that had happened in your day. That broad, skeletal smile with a glinting golden tooth in the corner... the sea water that beaded on it when he surfaced always glittered so magically in the light.

Your boyfriend was... interesting, to say the least. A monster, a being who might as well have come from another world entirely. A _siren,_ to be exact. Half skeleton, half shark, and with a long history of humans becoming meals when the fish became too few and far between. He was almost  _ 14ft  _ in length from head to tail tip, his tail half was longer than  _ you. _ And there was no doubt of the power in his body... or in his razor jaws.

He was a hunter, a killer, a  _ predator...  _

... But then again, humans were too. If anything,  _ your  _ species was the most cruel out of the two of you... the cruelty was just in the head, not the physical body. So it honestly wasn’t  _ that _ strange that the two of you could fall in love... you just wished the rest of the world would see it that way.

“They’re flippers!” You said, enthusiastically, beaming at him and moving your feet gently, careful not to kick him by accident. Not because it’d hurt him- you didn’t want to break them. “I bought them yesterday, I’ve been absolutely itching to try them all day long. They make me swim so much faster and further.”

He raised a brow. He liked to tease your inability to move quickly in water. “you? swimmin’ fast? that’ll be a sight to see.”

“Not my fault I’m built for land.” You pressed a kiss to his cheekbone, used to ignoring the taste of salt against his smooth face. “I’d like to see  _ you  _ go for a run, handsome.”

“mm... true...” His nasal cavity brushed your ear in a pseudo-nuzzle. “but you’d laugh too if ya saw me wearin’ a pair of badly made plastic legs on my torso, waddlin’ across the shore like a newborn turtle. cus that’s kinda what you look like.”

“Pff- they’re not  _ that _ bad!” You splashed water into his face (forgetting for a moment that he was, in fact, an ocean-dwelling monster, and therefore could not care less about water), kicking away from him with a few precise leg movements. 

He couldn’t stop himself from snorting very slightly, just his head and neck visible above the water line. “my first thought was ‘is that my girl, or is that a seal whose lower half got in a terrible accident with a sawblade?’”

“Whatever, asshole.” You splashed again, and he splashed back with his giant clawed hands, equally as playfully, probably deliberately missing. “They’re great.”

He chuckled, as smooth as the mirror-flat surface of the ocean on a calm summer night. “my precious lil’ lionfish.”

“... Aren’t lionfish an incredibly invasive species?” You narrowed your eyes. Although they were slightly more tiring because you had to move more weight, it was  _ so  _ much easier to tread water when you had the flippers on your feet- you didn’t even have to use your hands, for the most part. Slow kicks were enough.

“well...” He rolled onto his back, closing the distance you made with several kicks with a single, swift movement of his massive tail, until his head bumped against your chest. “you invaded my heart.”

“... You cheesy dumbass.” You mumbled, as affectionately as an insult could sound, holding either sides of his skull and pressing another kiss to his face-this time his forehead. It just felt so good to see him... even a single day apart felt like too much.

_ “your  _ cheesy dumbass.” He purred. “anyway- you gonna show me how those flippers work or what?”

... You grinned, moving your diving mask up over your eyes and nose, pressing it until you felt it seal... and took a deep breath in, rolling over in the water and diving straight down. As you kicked toward the surprisingly  _ far _ sea floor (yikes, when did it get that deep?) you felt a rush of water and saw his massive form gliding past you in a flurry of bubbles- he moved under you,  _ looping  _ you, grinning the whole time and clearly enjoying teasing you for being slow.

As he did, you got a spectacular view of all 14ft of him... his thick skeletal upper body was sturdy, and his upper right arm was covered in swirled unintelligible sirentongue carvings that almost made him look _ tattooed. _ On his spine, just below his shoulder blades, was that iconic shark dorsal fin... his lower body, a steely blue-grey, almost  _ perfectly  _ resembled that of a tiger shark. Complete with the expertly angled pectoral fins, notched tail fin and ripple-like effect on his back... his whole body was littered with scars, particularly on the sides of his lower half.

If you were out here alone, you never would’ve dove this far from the rocks. Local or not you still had that instinctive nagging fear of deep open water and what could possibly be lurking out there, just out of sight. Before you met Red your somewhat-daily swims never left the safety of the winding reef.

But when Red was here with you... you knew for a fact that nothing that could harm you would dare to get close. All sizes of fish, smaller sharks... hell, you were pretty sure that even sharks larger than Red himself would’ve deserted any area he made it clear he was in. He was, without doubt, an apex predator.

Your first meeting had been rather comedic, all things considered. You spotted him watching you change on your usual rock after going for a swim and you  _ both _ panicked- him that he’d been spotted, you screeching and lobbing your snorkel at his head while covering your almost-naked body with your towel. It didn’t even hit you until you’d ran all the way home that the person you’d seen spying on you had not, in fact, been a person at all; as he splashed to move away in his panic you’d  _ absolutely _ seen some kind of tail break the surface.

At the time, you’d been convinced it was a mermonster- the less aggressive, vegetarian cousin of the predacious siren. I mean... no siren would bother getting that close to you, an easy meal, without intending to sing and lure you to your death.

Right?

Nevertheless it’d taken no small amount of courage to return to the rocks after that. If it  _ was _ a mermonster it would’ve been an incredibly rare sight; they were shy, to say the least, and liked to keep to themselves. And mermonster or not it’d been one  _ hell  _ of a scare- he’d clearly been hiding, too, not too far from your usual changing perch. How long had he been watching for? The thought of someone seeing everything you did while you thought you were alone was more than enough to have you lying awake at night as your brain replayed every possible thing you’d done on that rock. You’d stripped, sure, but you’d talked to yourself, you’d sung, you’d even done  _ horribly _ embarrassing little dances to warm yourself up before going in.

Even just in your shower, the possibility that  _ anyone _ (let alone a magic stranger) had been watching over the past few days made your cheeks go so red you were certain the water was going to evaporate on impact. Could you ever show your face near the ocean again?

...

It took 2 days before curiosity overwhelmed you and you had to go back.

And it was there, on that rock, that you  _ properly _ met Red; he’d waited in that spot to return the snorkel you threw at him, grinning and very obviously flirting. You’d been hesitant to get in the water with him for almost a week but he eventually lured you in with that wonderful voice and strikingly charming personality... 

... Had you known he was a siren a little earlier, you wouldn’t have only been hesitant to get in the water- you would’ve been hesitant to even go near that side of the  _ entire bay. _

To be fair to you, it wasn’t easy to tell whether a monster was a siren or mermonster without seeing their lower half. Mermonsters had a wide variety of lower halves, but always of a prey species... anything from the usual scaled fish tails to eel tails, manta ray wings and even _jellyfish._ (Stingers included).

Sirens, on the other hand, had the lower halves of predators... like dolphins, pinnipeds, orca... with shark sirens easily having the most attacks on humans and causing mass panic whenever they were sighted off coasts. 

... Honestly, Red’s teeth should’ve given it away; those massive serrated fangs were  _ never  _ going to belong to an herbivore. But you questioned yourself, considering you weren’t already dead. Maybe he was just... 

... Naturally pointy?

It wasn’t until he convinced you to get in the water with him that you realised he was, actually, a _ massive shark. _ But when you (nervously) brought up that fact he just shrugged it off nonchalantly, running his phalanges across your shoulder and telling you in his wonderful soft voice that you were ‘certainly cute enough to eat, but not  _ that _ way’.

And just like that, he had you.

He liked to say your meeting was magical, and romantic- that he’d gone to the reef in order to hunt stray humans, instead finding you swimming there, and he was so taken with your beauty that it crossed all boundaries and made him keep coming back to hide in the rocks just to see you for a few moments. You couldn’t help but feel it had a little more to do with the skin-tight swimsuits you’d been wearing at the time, or the fact that you regularly stood on the rock and changed in full view of the reef thinking that no one could see you... 

... And it wasn’t like he was afraid to let his physical attraction to you known.

Even now, as you used your new flippers to power yourself down into the water (letting out half a breath through your nose to equalise the growing pressure inside your face mask), Red used his comfort and speed in the water to circle you and squeeze your butt. You yelped, accidentally letting a flurry of bubbles out of your mouth and spinning around to look up, losing your momentum; by the time you’d turned he was gone and all you could see was the ethereal blue light from the surface glowing through the water.

A few months ago you wouldn’t have been able to get this deep for this long. But all your time messing about in the water with Red had also made you much better at holding your breath, much better at diving in general... he re-emerged from behind you, blocking your view of the surface, and pressed a kiss to your neck, almost encircling your small body with his tail. You could tell he’d been waiting all day for this- he enjoyed the surface but he clearly much preferred being affectionate in the water where he was completely at home. He peppered your neck and jaw with kisses, and let out a happy growl when you returned a few on his cheekbone and teeth.

_ “you’re right, my lil’ anthias.” _ He said, mouth almost right up against your ear. His voice was  _ much  _ deeper in the water and almost sounded like he was speaking through a filter, but it was still impossibly clear compared to how you would’ve sounded.  _ “you’re much faster with flippers. still a cute slowpoke, though.” _

You made an infuriated little ‘MMPH’ noise in the back of your throat, playfully pushing his massive solid chest. All it got you was a chuckle and another butt squeeze.

Eventually, after what felt like forever but was three minutes at most, arms wrapped around his shoulders and just enjoying the weightless feeling and the view of the rippling surface above you, you tapped him three times on the shoulder- your agreed signal for ‘I need air’. He didn’t waste any time in getting you up to the surface, seemingly deciding it was too far for you to make safely on your own. 

The sky had changed significantly in the few minutes you were under the water; as soon as you broke the surface and took a breath, water trickling off your face, you had to remove your mask and just stare up to admire the blazing orange sunset for a moment. Somehow, seeing the sky was always different from the water... even though you were technically further away you somehow felt _closer_ to it. As if it were enveloping you.

Red recovered your attention, tracing a line across your forehead and down the side of your face. He was... grinning to himself...?

“it left a big sucker mark around your eyes...” He said, corners of his sockets crinkling. 

“... Always does that..” You were still slightly out of breath, taking long inhales through your nose.

“doesn’t mean it ain’t fuckin’ adorable. nice breathin’ today, you were under for almost four minutes.”

“Hah, hell yeah!” You threw your arms up for a second, relying on your legs clamped around his middle to hold yourself above the water- an action that made him laugh and latch his arms around _your_ middle, seemingly to catch you if you slipped. “But dammit, sometimes I just wish I could go without the mask and...”

...

Both of you seemed to realise what you just said, and you felt the atmosphere shift. Your arms came down.

...

...

You instead moved to hug yourself close to his ribcage. You tucked your head into where his shoulder met his spine... and in return his cheekbone rested on your soaking wet hair, arms firmly around you too.

To an outsider, seeing you two from a distance, you would’ve just looked like two stupid human lovers, frolicking and then embracing in the calm, clear ocean.

...

... If only.

...

You wanted to stay like that, forever. Cuddled up close, bobbing with the smooth waves, the sound of seagulls in the distance. The sky a slowly darkening canvas of oranges and reds and blues.

...

“... did you think about it?” He asked, voice barely above a whisper.

“...” You nuzzled further into his hold, staring across the expanse of water over his shoulder, into the neverending flat horizon. “... I still don’t know.”

... He pressed his face closer into your hair, too. 

“... s’okay. really. we’ve got lots of time.”

“I dunno if I’ll be able to keep sane when winter comes. It’ll be too cold to spend more than an hour or so in the water.”

“i can come up to the rocks.”

... You squeezed your eyes shut, savouring being held.

“... It’s... it’s just not the same...”

...

...

“... don’t cry, angelfish.”

... 

“I-I’m not.” You lied, blinking your eyes open again, pulling back slightly to press the heel of your palm against your eye. “I just have a wet face from being under.”

... He brushed a bony thumb over the other cheek, then brought it up to his mouth, serrated teeth parting to let his glowing crimson tongue flicker out and lightly swipe across the phalange.

“... your tears always tasted much sweeter than saltwater.”

... Red had mentioned it, a few months ago. He hadn’t asked you about it since he told you.

Sirens could reproduce, if they wanted to, but that wasn’t the only way of making more sirens. If an adult siren chose to, they could weave their magic into the Soul of someone who had recently drowned. They could sing, lure the pieces of Soul back together, back to them... back to the body it’d attempted to abandon. And this revival, while surrounded by the very essence of the ocean on all sides, imbued the Soul with something new...

... Sirens could revive a drowned Soul as another siren. A permanent physical change. No more legs, no more land... and in return, an ageless life out in an endless sea.

...

Red could turn you into a siren. The two of you could be together, forever, travelling the world with no worries or cares... sometimes you openly wondered what kind of siren you’d be, and Red always joked you’d be a seal because you were ‘soft, cute, small and tasty’...

... But ...

...

He’d have to drown you.

Neither of you were quite prepared for that.

... 

... He sighed, softly, threading his claw-like phalanges through your hair.

You trusted him. You trusted him completely.

... It just seemed like he didn’t trust himself.

...

“C’mon.” You pulled away a little, moving your hands to the front of his ribcage. “I can’t afford to waste time being sad, I need to keep warm so I can stay in after nightfall.”

...

He grinned, squeezing your hips, seemingly shaking off the negative emotions just as quickly as you decided to shake off yours.

“aight. you wanna warm up? y’ve got a minute to swim as far away as you can before i start huntin’ you down. we’ll see if you can actually evade me this time... now you’re all excited about your flippers.”

“If I win you have to take me for a swim on your back.”

“deal.” He let go. “better skedaddle, fairy wrasse. i’m already counting.”

...

You didn’t win.

But he gave you a ride anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> imagine having an ass so fine even a guy who's part of a species who doesn't HAVE asses couldn't help but be into it-
> 
> Edit: beautiful fanart of [our sexy shark man](https://llamagoddessofficial.tumblr.com/post/617450135771856896/llamagoddessofficial-playing-around-with-the-idea), Mc [as a seal siren,](https://llamagoddessofficial.tumblr.com/post/617549761262895104/yes-we-stan-chubby-mc-this-is-what-i-had-in) and a [lil snippet](https://llamagoddessofficial.tumblr.com/post/617549981717561344/theres-more-o-fuck-red-please-dont-let-her) from an au where Red drowns her after hypnotising her with his sirensong, and then lies about how she drowned so she won’t hate him... all from @ophiebot on tumblr!  
> Amazing [fanart of shark Red and Mc chilling in the ocean](https://llamagoddessofficial.tumblr.com/post/619082794982948864/agh-i-tried-to-reblog-this-earlier-but-tumblr) from coinoperatedrejection!  
>  [This piece from addicted-to-the-fic](https://addicted-to-the-fic.tumblr.com/post/626117877496430592/a-collection-of-fables-and-romances-chapter-2) makes my face go bright red and my heart doki doki, it's so pretty and Red looks so handsome >//v//>


	3. Shapeshifter - (HF! ''Human'' Sans x Reader)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Writing my Horrorfell Sans, Copper, was super fun- melding Red and Skull together and seeing what comes out!
> 
> Copper's human form (and basically this entire oneshot) is VERY HEAVILY inspired by @semisolidmind's human form drawings of the skeleboys on Tumblr. I saw her versions of UF and HT Sans and boy, lemme tell you, everyone absolutely 100% needs to check out because they look SO HUGGABLE, so big and _LOVEABLE,_ god I WISH I could find me a human man like that.
> 
> Also, massive thanks to aka-indulgence for basically being an absolute sweetheart and inspiring me to keep writing this lil thing when I was feeling down! <3

There was something... _strange_ about your boyfriend.

And you weren’t saying that to be rude! Of course, everyone was unique. No two people acted the same. And there was always going to be some odd things about someone with an... _injury_ like his.

Copper was... not the kind of person you’d miss in a crowd, to say the least. For one, he was _large._ Impossibly tall (later measurements you did together found he was almost exactly 7ft tall) and broad shouldered, built like a brick wall. His arms weren’t conventionally ‘ripped’ but his biceps were as big as your head and there were clearly huge and _powerful_ muscles shifting under his skin... there were no washboard abs in sight with this giant but he looked like he could snap most adult men you knew like _twigs._

... His sheer size was likely the first thing people noticed about him- it was definitely what _you_ noticed. He was so large that on your first meeting he cast a shadow so big it completely enveloped you.

But the next thing one would notice is his eyes. 

... Well... his right eye, in particular. 

It was _white,_ clouded, milky, like an orb of glass so covered in minute cracks and imperfections that it had misted over. It had lost most of its transparency and although the faint rim of an iris that moved in tandem with his other brown eye could be made out he clearly didn’t have vision through it. It was almost impossible to look away from.

And as soon as your attention was taken from the eyes, you’d see the scar- the most likely cause of the dead and milky eye. It was thick and long, starting somewhere near the middle of his scalp, widening to reveal a path of light scar tissue almost two inches wide... and then it travelled down his face, carving through dark skin, slicing through his eyebrow and finally tapering off on his cheekbone, passing over the eye. The scar tissue on his head refused to let any hair grow, so it cut a decent chunk out of his thick masses of his long, curly sable brown hair to leave an open balded area that he was incredibly embarrassed by and often covered with some kind of cap or beanie.

(You helped him shave one side of his head to give him more of a deliberately asymmetrical look. It suited him- and he really appreciated it.) 

... And that, unfortunately, wasn’t the only scar he sported. In private, under the layers of clothing he piled on to hide his body, were what seemed like _hundreds_ of pinkish and silvery faded scars. He had two on his jaw where something had caught him turning away- that was the easiest one to see. His arms had groups of parallel grooves where claws had taken chunks of muscle that never properly grew back. His massive hands were leathery, littered with pockmarks and cuts, well-worn fingers and palms covered by rock solid calluses... he was missing the top of his pinky on his left hand. His chest and belly were marred with long and short slashes, even some that looked like deep and _wide_ stab wounds that would’ve been fatal on a smaller man. 

...

It was easy to see why it took him 6 months of steady relationship to take off his shirt in front of you for the first time. 

But those weren’t the things that concerned you.

You _liked_ his body- something it seemed to take him a long time to believe. You adored his solid hands; the hands of a hard worker. You loved tracing your fingers over his massive chest with your eyes closed, feeling every groove and divot and knot. You weren’t scared to hold eye contact with him and see the milky dead eye staring back at you.

From the first moment you met him, he was just... unforgettable. Unavoidable. You started the world’s most awkward conversation about the weather when he took the space behind you in the line in your favourite cafe, and he blurted out a few responses, apparently totally taken aback that you not only bothered to talk to him but seemed to want to _continue_ talking. His speech impediment that slowed and slurred the way he spoke was oddly _charming_ to you... and when you offered for him to sit with you, the smile he gave you with that resounding _‘yes please’_ made your heart soar high enough to completely ignore the faces of the other patrons.

... Maybe that’s why he liked you so much. You weren’t scared, and you didn’t care what others thought. He liked you, you liked him, and you weren’t afraid... a relationship had caught up on the two of you before you even realised.

But...

... As you spent more time with your boyfriend, more weeks and months... as you began looking past the obvious things a normal person would immediately avert their gaze from... you realised there were other, _much_ stranger things about him that seemed to fly totally under the radar. 

Because most attention was drawn to the horribly disfigured and blinded eye, hardly anyone noticed that the other healthy eye was _stunning-_ it _seemed_ brown but when the light bounced off it just right, it was an intense bright _red._ He had a _red iris._

Because of the huge scar that balded a quarter of his scalp, no one’s line of sight drifted down far enough to notice his teeth. It was strange enough that one was golden but the more you looked the more you saw they were very unusually _sharp._ Not enough to be obvious and deliberate... but there was just an extra point to them that didn’t seem to be common on other people. 

And no one paid attention to the unscarred patches of skin... no one but you. After spending night after night curled up next to him and familiarising yourself with every detail, after the two of you bonded more over time, you started to notice these increasingly strange things that worried you.

Some days, his skin was _wrong._ It was subtle but you _saw_ it... it was like... like when you look at a repeating pattern for too long and your eyes start to trip out, confusing and blurring the dimensions. Some days it was perfectly normal but other times, in early morning, or in the middle of the night, it would... i-it...

... You couldn’t describe it. It just wouldn’t look _like skin._ Too smooth. Not shadowed or textured enough. Too... 

_... fake._

_Am I going crazy...!?_

There were other things, too. His working eye was just a little _too_ red in the dark. Sometimes he didn’t blink for noticeably long periods of time. Sometimes, in the corner of your vision, his shadow had a smooth head, like it didn’t have any hair on it... he would grin and his sharp teeth were just a little _too_ sharp, sharper than normal. 

One time, when you grabbed his hand, it felt for a split second like you were grabbing warm _clay._

... You would’ve brushed it off. Every time he asked you if you were okay when you’d clearly seen something that just wasn’t right, you brushed it off, not wanting him to think you disliked his appearance. How would you explain that to someone who was so clearly deeply disturbed by their own body? “Hey, by the way, sometimes your face looks fake. Haha.” You couldn’t just _tell_ him that.

You _wanted_ to brush it off. You wanted to ignore it and just pretend it was because he was such an unusual character overall, and the nagging of your family was getting to your head.

(A lot of your friends and family _really_ didn’t approve of Copper as your partner, simply because of his physical oddities.)

You wanted to forget about it.

...

But the weirdnesses just _kept piling._

_..._

And then...

... The worst was one night, when you awoke to him getting himself out of bed. That was normal... he was so heavy that when you laid in bed together you always ended up rolling toward him, and when he got up the shift in the mattress and the lightly squeaking bed woke you up. You ignored it, far too comfortable... you barely registered the sound of his feet crossing the floor. His footsteps were unmistakable- slow, heavy. Some vague noises in the bathroom, a toilet flushing, a sink running... him returning... he was a pretty light sleeper so this wasn’t abnormal...

... The bed sank again, this time on the edge; he was sitting on it.

... You peeked one eye open, barely, still drowsy and fuzzy-headed... his back was to you...

...

_His hair was gone and his skin was completely milk white._

Your eyes widened.

A beat passed.

_He didn’t change._

You immediately gasped- _loudly-_ and sat bolt upright in bed, the covers falling off you- _that wasn’t your boyfriend!?-_ Copper jumped, turning to look at you, clearly taken off guard-

...

Normal. Nothing was out of place. His rough, sepia brown skin and waves of untamed shoulder-length hair were all there, as they should be.

“... y’ok?” He asked, his deep, soothing voice _noticeably_ absent of the usual huskiness that came with him being tired. His reddish working eye was boring into you.

... Your heart was _pounding._

“Y-yeah. Sorry. Weird dream.” You mumbled, averting your gaze and quickly laying back down, your back to him.

No.

You were _not_ okay.

You didn’t shut your eyes again; you stared at the wall, swallowing. _It was just the moonlight,_ you told yourself as he laid down again, exhaling deeply and going back to sleep. _The moonlight hitting his skin must have made it look strange, or something._

... But that doesn’t explain where his hair went.

Well maybe... maybe you had something in your eye. A bit of that weird gunk that forms when you sleep just... was blotting out his head.

... But... his head was so... _smooth...?_

...

You sighed, rubbing your face and rolling onto your other side, forcing yourself to tuck in and close your eyes. You focused on his breathing... his deep, impossibly slow breathing...

...

You fell asleep telling yourself over and over again that you were imagining it.

...

But you woke up to Copper staring at you.

(Nothing out of the ordinary. He was prone to staring bouts.)

He was normal, at least; you searched his face but were unable to find any irregularities. It definitely made you feel better, and you relaxed a tad, smiling at him... yeah, the previous night must’ve been some kind of hallucination. Maybe you were just exhausted from a long day, and being woken up in the middle of the night wasn’t good for your brain... you ‘saw’ and assumed things before you came to your senses.

“... i wanna... talk. ‘bout... somethin.” He mumbled.

You yawned, assuming it was a small matter. “... Yeah. Sure.”

He got out of bed, gesturing for you to follow. You didn’t really think- you pulled back the covers and swung your legs over the edge, shuffling across the room. Your hair felt incredibly fuzzed up some of it was tickling your nose; you assumed your bed hair must be pretty fantastic.

... He pulled the blinds shut on the window, cutting out a significant portion of the light. You furrowed your brow but he just turned back to you, taking your little hands in his, holding them like he was holding a baby bird. 

There it was again- his eye seeming just a tad too red in the darkness.

“close your eyes.”

... What? You must’ve made a confused or questioning face, because he just replied with an imploring look, giving your hands the gentlest squeeze physically possible. Was it just you, or did he seem nervous? 

“please.”

...

“... Uhm... Okay. Sure.” You shut your eyes. “How long do I have to keep them shut for?”

...

...

Oh _no._ You did _not_ like this- not one bit. Why wasn’t he replying? You forced yourself to keep your eyes shut in case this was some kind of surprise or something. 

“Copper?”

...

“y’love me, right?” He sounded _terrified._ What the hell was going on? You started to feel slightly sick. Was he... breaking up with you, or something? “k-keep ‘em shut.”

You forced yourself to nod. “... Of course. Obviously.”

“... and...” A swallowing sound. “... ya would... like me... n-no matter what i looked like...?”

...

“... Yes?” You were starting to get _really_ nervous. A knot had tied itself in the pit of your stomach, and you could feel your brows creasing with how hard you were forcing yourself to keep your eyes shut. “Copper, what’s going on?”

“... i-i’m just... i want you to know... the truth. ‘bout me. what i am.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“just trust me.”

... He took a deep breath in, and a deep, shaking breath out.

“... have you heard of monsters?” He asked, very gently.

... Weird question. “... Well yeah, literally everyone has. I don’t think there’s anyone who hasn’t.”

“can you... tell me what y’know?”

“... Uh... well. They’re really powerful and intelligent magic creatures, who live for like, hundreds of years...” Your mind was really trawling up the old info it had collected... last time you remembered being taught about monsters was in highschool. “They can be any shape or size, usually massive, so humans normally avoid them... and, uhm, because humans hunted all the smaller ones down, monsters are usually the super smart with really intense and powerful magic.” Talking to him was definitely making you a little less nervous, but you still didn’t like this whole situation. Not being able to see his face was throwing you off. “A few bigger types eat people but it’s pretty rare for any attacks to actually happen. They live in the mountains and rivers and oceans, n’ stuff... deserts too, I think... far away from large groups of humans...”

He made a small humming sound of affirmation. “yeah, all that. ... ‘cept one bit.”

“... Which bit?”

“they... don’t just live in... remote and rural areas.”

“... What do you mean by that?” 

“there are monsters... a lot closer than you might think.”

...

...

You couldn’t help it. You had to open your eyes. That statement threw you for such a fucking loop that you had to be absolutely certain he wasn’t grinning like an idiot and pulling your leg about something...

...

Everything stopped.

_You weren’t looking down at human hands._

W-what was holding _your_ hands... what you _thought_ was your boyfriend’s rock hard calluses...

... It was actually rock hard _bone._

You were holding huge, pale, _completely skeletal_ hands. Bigger than Copper’s normal hands- _much_ bigger. Your entire hand was the size of the skeleton hand’s palm.

...

You looked up, to where Copper’s head would’ve been.

And found yourself looking at a chest. A vast expanse of a chest that blocked the light, silhouetting the whole form.

...

You looked up even further.

_Eyesockets._

The head on this gigantic body, _twice the size of you,_ was a huge _skull._ Deep, void-like eyesockets, one empty, one sporting a burning red ring of light that illuminated most of him. A maw of blade-sharp teeth and a jagged hole in the side of the skull with a crack that went right through the eye, ending at the cheekbone...

...

_Oh no..._

The teeth parted ever-so-slightly, and your boyfriend’s voice came out.

“... i didn’t want to tell you.” His iris was so bright it was glowing against the rim of his socket. “... but... i didn’t want... to _lie_ to you anymore...”

...

No sound was coming out of you.

Th-that couldn’t be him. C-could it!? Your focus was darting all over the monstrous skeletal face like fish darting in a pond. N-no. W... what...!?

...

You tore your eyes away from his face to look back at his massive hands.

...

... On his left pinky, the topmost piece of bone, the ‘distal’ phalange...

... was missing.

...

_This was him._

_This was Copper._

_..._

_Oh my God._

You looked back up, taking in the entire face in a whole new light. The gaping jagged hole in his head that cut right through his face and cheek was exactly where your boyfriend’s head scar was, curve for curve. The two silvery scars on his human jaw were tiny, almost imperceptible parallel nicks across the bottom of the mandible, th-the clawed grooves on his arms were instead cuts in raw bone below his shoulder...

... Your line of sight met that red, glowing ring, that was transfixed on you with a strange _nervous_ constriction to it, as if he was spending every second under scrutiny _dreading_ your reaction...

...

_It’s him._

You forced in a shuddering breath, suddenly realising you’d forgotten to breathe.

“C...” Why did it feel like there was a baseball lodged in your throat? Why did you feel like you were staring up at a _giant?_ This must be a dream. You must’ve still been asleep. “...C-Copper?”

... His shoulders dropped like mercury on a cold day as he looked down at you, corners of those nightmarish rows of teeth lifting into what your gut immediately told you was a smile of relief.

He let go of your hands, dropping heavily onto his knees, instead using his giant arms to hug you close. The skeleton body was so large that even when he was kneeling he was still taller than you... you barely registered him pulling you in, or your face pressing into his shoulder... all you could focus on was his voice.

_His voice was the same._

“y-yeah. yeah, it’s me...”

It was instinct, if anything- your own tiny little hands gripped his shirt so tight your knuckles began to ache. It felt so strange to be close to him like this, and not being able to bury your face in his masses of curly hair, or feel the familiarity of padded muscle and skin. It was just _bone..._

“Y-you’re...” You felt choked. Confused. Overwhelmed. Nothing was processing. It wasn’t a dream, was it? In a dream you wouldn’t feel several of his giant ribs pressing against your chest.

“... a monster.”

_A monster._ The word suddenly felt so _taboo._ How many times had you called someone a monster as an insult, right in front of him? You felt like you wanted to cry and scream and pass out all at the same time but all you could do was stare at the wall over his shoulder, unblinking.

“... most monsters... live in cities too.” He said, in that same drawl you loved so much, while you desperately clung to him. “... we just... had ta figure out... how to pass as human.”

_“Th-that’s_ why your skin...” Your temples hurt, voice a whisper. “And your shadow, they...”

...

You didn’t realise you’d said what you’d said until he seemed to... 

... Stiffen a little.

...

“...uhm.” A pause. “... what?”

...

He didn’t sound angry. Or alarmed. 

You couldn’t... quite place your finger on what emotion that little question seemed to possess...?

You relaxed your hands a little, feeling his huge collarbone under the fabric.

“... Y-your skin.” You repeated, not sure how to muster up the courage to make your voice any louder. If you just didn't look at him you could pretend you were still talking to the human Copper... even now, your head was swimming, searching for ways this could be some kind of practical joke. “Sometimes, it was... it looked smooth. F-fake.”

...

He let out a tiny chuckle, thin and awkward. 

... You didn’t really understand what was funny...?

“... aw geez.” A hand removed itself from your back, and you heard the unmistakable sound of bone clacking gently against bone. “that’s, uh... that’s not supposed to happen...”

...

You leant back a bit to see his face again, and he looked down at you with that raw, glowing light. He was... definitely _jarring_ to look at. Faces weren’t _supposed_ to have holes in them. Your mind kept telling you it couldn’t _possibly_ be him, it couldn’t be your boyfriend, but...

... God, the more you looked at him, the more this skeletal face seemed to meld into the ‘human’ one you knew so well.

Your gut was accepting the truth faster than you were.

He chuckled again, just as awkwardly as before, when your clearly confused gaze didn't waver and you didn't make a sound. He was rubbing the unbroken back of his skull with his massive hand.

“i guess... today’s as good a day as any... to find out... i ain’t very good at shapeshifting...”

...

You couldn’t help it. You snorted, a crease forming between your brows that was a mix of confusion and amusement. 

_What?_

“Y-you mean...” You started to pick up a little volume, now that you were focusing on something that wasn’t your own fear. “...all of the stuff I saw was because you’re just... bad at 'shapeshifting'?”

His cheekbones started to dust with a light carmine colour. A blush? “w-well, when you put it like that...”

...

Dude.

You _really_ couldn’t help it. You started to laugh a little; the idea that all of the bizarre, deeply wrong and strangely _horrifying_ things you’d seen that’d been tormenting you over the course of the relationship was just because this massive skeleton monster was bad at holding a form was too much. The mix of relief and absurdity of the situation was turning into a light hysteria that began to crack you; he noticeably loosened.

“i-i tried, okay?” He said, in an embarrassed higher pitch (though high pitch for Copper was still several octaves below your tone), but you could tell by the tone of his voice he was putting on a bit of show to get more laughs out of you- like an adult faking a scandalous tone to make a child snicker. “holdin’ a form is really difficult.”

“L-last night you _had no skin!”_ Your timbre was getting higher and your voice louder; it felt much easier to look at Copper’s skeletal expression when it was clearly a face of pure relief and you were trying to hold in giggles. “And when you _do_ have skin sometimes it looks like a badly rendered video game character! Y-your teeth are _way_ too sharp, sometimes you don’t _blink,_ your eye is _bright red-”_

“i thought humans could have red eyes?” He said, a crease forming between the brow bones despite his widening smile.

“Yeah, but like, less than 1% of the population has it!” Your voice was incredulous, humour gently washing away the terror you'd been thrown into headfirst only moments ago. “And it’s because of albinism, it’s not something naturally occuring like blue or brown.”

“albiwhat?” ... his shoulders sagged further, and he glanced away. “oookay, maybe... i’m a lot worse than i thought.”

You facepalmed with both hands. “Oh my God.”

He broke into soft laughter, and... fuck, it was infectious- you laughed too, small and somewhat quietly. The nervousness and relief had melted together to make you easy to poke over the edge. You had to admit... laughing with him made the situation a lot easier to digest.

_Your boyfriend was a monster. A gigantic, mythical monster. Hardly something most people could boast about, huh?_

“L-look, Copper, baby,” in a burst of an emotion you didn't recognise, you reached up and put your hands on either side of his giant face, on the cheekbones. They were so small on his head... and it was so _strange_ to be touching something that felt that... _otherworldly._ But the more you spoke to him and touched him, the more your brain accepted it was still the man you adored... the easier it became to touch him. A spiral. And the more you accepted it was him, the more you could... pretty much ignore his horrifying features. “I love you very much. But you gotta research something before you pretend to be it. Okay?”

When you willingly held his face, the fist-sized ring of light in his socket dilated like ink in water, and his smile grew so wide it caused the corner of his working socket to pinch into almost human-like crinkles.

_... Somehow, he was... cute._

_..._

... And just like that, you allowed yourself to relax, breathing out.

It was still your precious moron in there... human or not. 

_Who cares if his hands are large enough to crush your skull? Who cares if his teeth are big and sharp enough to take off your arm?_

_... It didn’t matter how dangerous something was... if it was attached to him, you knew for certain it could never be used to hurt you._

...

“maybe... you can give me... some advice.” He said, soft, hands coming up to press over yours. “since you’re... the resident human expert... in this household.”

“In return you’re telling me everything about monsters.”

A shaky nod.

...

...

Something was forming in the corners of both sockets. Something... red, and liquid-like...

“... Copper?” Your voice lost the giggly mirth as you looked closer. “Are you...?”

He was still smiling, but... red liquid spilt out his sockets and trickled down his cheekbones, running past your hands and dripping off his jaw. It was warm to the touch.

... _Tears...?_

“s-sorry.” He mumbled, letting go of your hands to hug you again, bending downward to press his face into your shoulder. You felt completely enveloped by him- his voice was suddenly so gentle, so thin. “sorry, sorry... i-i just... _fuck,_ i was... i was so scared you’d run... my human form a-ain’t the prettiest picture, and... that’s the _better_ version...”

...

You hugged him back, chest starting to ache. 

... He didn’t want to tell you, did he? You were realising that very quickly. He was, clearly, absolutely terrified of letting you know. He could’ve just hidden himself forever, he could’ve kept on living with you as a ‘human’.... You wouldn’t have ever brought up the strange feelings you had- you never would’ve confronted him with your gut instinct that something was wrong, writing it off as unfair paranoia. He could’ve lived a perfectly safe life.

But instead... 

... He risked _everything_ to tell you the truth.

...

“... Look at me?” You asked.

He pulled back a little, massive face inches from yours, now streaked with red tear tracks.

_And just like that, it suddenly seemed so strange to be afraid of him._

... You kissed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Copper: ugh i am secretly a horrible disfigured monster.......... gigantic and scary, with huge claws and sharp teeth...... no one could love me.......
> 
> Mc, after about one (1) minute: I see this as an absolute win


	4. Wonder - (UT! Cheshire Cat Sans x Reader)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I found a youtube clip of the scene in Alice in Wonderland where the flowers sing 'Golden Afternoon'... and then I was Hooked, Hooked I tell you, and I had to write some Cheshire Cat Sans. Just a smidge. I gotta say- nonsense writing is pretty fun!

“you’re back  _ again? _ i must say, one could make a farthingale with the amount of hoops you’ve walked...”

Immediately, you spun around, looking for the source of that  _ damn _ voice- the voice of that absolute  _ devil  _ who had been  _ tormenting  _ you nonstop for what felt like hour after hour after hour-

_ There!  _ He was sitting in a tree with bark the colour of orange peel, on a bow several feet above you, hanging one leg over the edge with his trademark laziness.

That  _ damn _ cat- you felt your nose wrinkling as your face pulled into a scowl. Right now, he’d taken his skeleton form- sporting a white shirt, black shorts and a blue cloak with a fur-trim hood. But even his skeleton body wasn’t correct; on his skull there were two, large cat ears, covered in a soft ermine-white fur that blended seamlessly into the bone of his cranium. And beside him, laying flat along the branch, was his huge tail; exceptionally white and furry, but the top was striped with a tabby pattern in a bright azure blue.

He was grinning down at you with that  _ infuriating _ grin, and those vertical slits of blue light in his deep black sockets.

“Y-you... you!” You stomped your foot. Your hair was a bird’s nest, your white stockings and little lavender dress were flecked with the bright pink mud (why was the ground green, but the mud neon pink!?), and the bow in your hair had seemingly found it completely impossible to just sit straight on your head since you fell down into this topsy-turvy hellscape. “This is your fault!”

Everyone you’d previously met on your never-ending journey through Wonderland had seemed  _ terrified  _ of the concept of passing through these winding woods. Even Papyrus, who was ever so kind and quite possibly the least mad and infuriating person you’d met so far, warned that his brother ‘the Cheshire’ was ‘NOT WHAT HE USED TO BE’. That he’d ‘LOST HIS WIMPLAGS’ and ‘COULDN’T TELL A YADWHAPPER FROM A SHINKLESCRAG!’. 

Even the craziest, oddest and most  _ nonsensical  _ of monsters who most evidently did  _ not  _ have your best interests at heart had warned you not to enter. Everyone seemed scared out of their  _ wits _ of the monster inhabiting the trees, of the ringmaster of the darkest, most winding ways in Wonderland... the  _ thing _ behind the tree line. They said he protected them from the king’s guard and those who attempted to march on the polite lower lands of Wonderland... but nobody who went in had ever come back out.

Aside from Papyrus, of course. He seemed exempt from all Wonderland’s rules, and you couldn’t say you didn’t love him for it.

... But... in the end, you had no choice. To escape this world and get back home, you needed to reach the palace... and to get to the palace you had to ‘PASS THE QUITE POSSIBLY IMPASSABLE FOREST’.

... And when you did enter the woods?

Why, the cat everyone had been so ridiculously scared of...

... He was nothing but an  _ infuriating trickster _ who called you ridiculous pet names and pointed you in circles!

His eyelights enlargened a little, from slits into almond shapes, and his stupid grin stretched wide across his face as he stared at you unblinkingly. He vanished in a poof of glittering lazuli smoke and reappeared right in front of you, at your eye level, hanging upside-down with his legs hooked over another branch.

“oh, my little mouse, i’m so flattered...” His voice was gentle, deep, rolling... and intertwined with a soft purring he seemed to constantly emanate when you were the subject of the conversation. “your mind must be so  _ very  _ occupied with thoughts of me for you to blame me for such a simple thing as walking the wrong way...” 

“All  _ I _ did was walk forward, Cat!” You gestured wildly, completely at your wits end. At least when you’d first met him you’d  _ pretended _ to not be aggravated by his very presence, but now? You were tired and your legs  _ hurt _ and you just wanted to go home, back to where paths led where they were  _ supposed  _ to and the trees didn’t pick up their roots and move like a lady hiking up her skirt to go for a stroll. Walking for hours could do terrible things to the brain and as of now you were completely and utterly beyond any attempts at politeness. “I kept my eyes on the palace and I walked in a straight line. And yet here I am, again!”

“well, that’s the thing, sweet pet...” He cooed. The name made your cheeks flush with a mix of anger and embarrassment- something he seemed to  _ adore. _ “going forward only gets you back where you started.”

“That makes no sense at all.” You crossed your arms over your chest.

He hummed, his bushy tail curling in the air like an unfurling fern and his sockets lidding. “oh, but it does.”

He vanished again, reappearing on the body of the tree, standing perfectly horizontally without a care in the world. He began to saunter happily, taking a casual stroll  _ on _ the tree, all the way around the thick orange trunk.

“you see, precious?” Once he made a full rotation he crouched down, ears twitching happily at your agape expression. “if one keeps going forward, one simply goes in a great big circle.”

“Th-that...” 

...

You rubbed your temples.  _ Well, at least for  _ **_once_ ** _ he’s making some sense.  _ So forward didn’t take you forward, back didn’t take you back, and attempting to follow the wiggling and winding pathways just brought you around again to the centre of the woods?

“by the way, little mouse...” In the split second it’d taken you to look away from him, his voice had migrated- you spun around, spotting him lounging in another tree a distance away and quite a bit above you (this time the bark was midnight blue), his position reminding you of a leopard relaxing in a tree and waiting for prey to pass underneath. He lazily pointed to a small yellow path. “if you  _ really _ wanted to get somewhere... you would go that way.”

Aha! Finally something slightly useful! You couldn’t help feeling a modicum of relief as you looked up at him. “That way?”

He cocked his head, eyes and grin suddenly blank. 

“which way?”

...

You blinked, brows creasing. 

“... You said I should... go that way.”

“what way?”

_ “That _ way!”

“but there’s no way.”

...

When you looked back at the little pathway that’d been there only moments ago, it was nothing but thickly crowded trees.

_ “Cat!” _

He sniggered, resting his chin on his hand.

You exhaled sharply through your nose and turned to walk down the nearest path, uncaring of where it would lead; so long as it was somewhat away from  _ him  _ and his  _ infernal  _ grin. It sloped upward but was somehow covered with water, which is why you hadn’t taken it originally- but now you were quite uncaring and the feeling of water sloshing around your shoes as you stomped forward. It was relatively shallow and as long as it didn’t get your dress you’d be alright; you could just remove your shoes and stocking and let them dry while you carefully moved barefoot.

_ I’m... I’m sick of wonder and nonsense! _ You bit the inside of your cheek, marching away.  _ Once I get out of this place I’m going to be nothing but incurious and sensible for the rest of my life. And I’m going to get a dozen large black dogs, with great big jaws and teeth and vicious tempers, so no cat will dare set foot anywhere near my home and I’ll never have to look at a feline EVER again-! _

“oh, don’t be like  _ that.” _ He said, in his sing-song tone, from...  _ below _ you? You looked down-

_ He WAS your reflection! _

You  _ shrieked, _ jumping up in the air like a terrified cricket, tripping over your own feet when you landed and staggering back a few paces before falling on your butt in an awfully loud splash that threw droplets up into the air, which then rained down, pattering on your head and soaking almost your entire body.

You heard his disembodied laughter ringing around you, clearly taking no small amount of joy from catching you so off-guard.

...

...

You just... stayed where you were sat. 

In the water.

...

His chuckling faded when he seemingly realised you hadn’t had the reaction he’d intended.

... You were a grown woman, for heaven’s sake. Almost an adult. You pressed the heels of your palms against your eyes, gritting your teeth- you were engaged to be  _ married _ back in the real world, no matter how much the man or the concept frightened you, your days of snivelling and wailing were far behind you.

...

... And yet here you were. Sitting in a large puddle, dripping with water, covering your eyes and biting your lip... about to cry because you’d no doubt ruined your favourite dress.

...

You succeeded in swallowing down your desire to cry like a child and instead just sniffled, once- a small sound but nonetheless a dead giveaway of your emotional feebleness. 

... With your eyes covered, you missed the once-in-a-lifetime sight of a Cheshire without a smile.

...

“... you know... saltwater is terrible for plants.”

An invisible thumb brushed against your face, wiping away a tear you hadn’t realised you’d let loose. You removed your hands from your face, confused, only to see a pearly white and impossibly wide grin floating just in front of you, as if the air itself had cracked a smile.

... The rest of his body formed around the smile, wisps and thick twirls of blue smoke gathering into a solid form... like the opposite of blowing out a candle. But the form that took shape around the smile wasn’t the skeleton.

Instead, he’d taken on the body of a large, slightly overweight but  _ incredibly  _ fluffy white cat, decorated on the head, back and tail with blue tabby stripes. He was reclined in front of you, taking a leisurely swim in the air, once again proving he was exempt from gravity’s demands.

... His eyes were the most  _ wonderful  _ collection of blues- light in the middle and dark on the edges. Around the sharp black pupil were mottled light sky blues and maya blues... but around the rims, it was  _ vivid _ lapis’ and  _ sapphires. _ You couldn’t deny that as a feline he was just about the prettiest creature you’d ever seen; it was such a pity the beautiful form contained such a wretched trickster.

“... I-I’ve heard as much.” You mumbled, pulling yourself together a little, wiping the rest of the wetness off your face yourself.

“so don’t go watering your rosy cheeks with tears. you’ll only make them wilt.”

...

You snorted.

“Is that your best attempt at being pleasant?”

“perhaps. besides... i’m sorry.”

...

The phrase took you totally by surprise, and you blinked at him.

“... You are?”

His grin widened, pupils dilating. “i merely wanted to play with you a little. but it appears i let myself get... somewhat overzealous.”

... You stared at him, for a moment. 

He really  _ was _ a quizzical thing, wasn’t he? You couldn’t say you’d been expecting an apology from him. You were hardly upset to receive one but he really hadn’t struck you as the sort of creature to accept faults in his own behaviour... the more you thought you understood him, the more he pulled the carpet out from under your feet.

He (very quickly) rolled into a ball that kept rolling in on itself until he vanished- shortly reappearing by your side, standing weightlessly on the surface of the water. “are you hurt at all?”

... You sighed, looking down at your completely soaked shoes, stockings, petticoat and dress skirt. “Emotionally, yes. Otherwise? No.”

He let out a tiny, hissing laugh; you couldn’t help but feel yourself swelling with pride at having made him laugh without being the subject of the joke.

“well,” He purred, trotting ahead a little. “i presume you’re not going to dry yourself any faster by sitting in that puddle. and wounds, whether emotional or no, do tend to fester in dirty water.”

You clicked your tongue. “I don’t know... this world is so utterly devoid of logic that maybe I  _ can _ dry by being wet.”

“come now. don’t be silly.” He vanished, reappearing several paces ahead of you, ears turning to you and tail curling in the air... grin seeming suddenly a lot warmer than before. “that would be madness.”

... You couldn’t help but let out a small laugh, rolling your eyes a little... but pulling yourself to your feet nonetheless, waiting for the shower of water that rained down from your drenched dress and petticoat to stop pouring before you moved.

He cocked his head again, turning and starting to walk down the path. “i know the perfect place to dry out. allow me to lead the way.”

“My, what a gentleman.” You said. But you didn’t hesitate to follow the happily guiding feline, despite the unpleasant squishing of your wet stockings in your shoes as you trudged. “Though forgive me if I’m expecting you to lead me right into the mouth of another river, Cat.”

“heh... forgiven.” There was something quite adorable about how his little fluffy white paws trotted across the ground. “i can’t deny i was considering it.”

You narrowed your eyes. “I would advise caution with further pranks. I’m in a foul mood and I may suddenly find myself overcome with the desire to boot your little body over the horizon.”

“charming thing, aren’t you?”

“Pot, kettle.”

He led you down the path, eventually out of the water- the more you travelled with him the more a route seemed to carved itself out of nowhere, the trees parting for him and bowing out of the way like servants in a grand castle. It did feel quite nice to watch the branches that’d been tearing at your hair and face for hours peel back, until it all opened into a neat little clearing with a single, leafless tree in the centre of a field of purple grass. The sun was beaming down and it already felt several degrees warmer...

... Certainly enough to lift your spirits a bit.

You hummed, removing your drenched shoes and stockings, leaving the former on the ground in full sunshine and hanging the latter over a low branch. After that, you took a seat with your back against the tree... taking a deep breath in, and an equally as deep breath out. The grass felt rather nice on your legs, warmer than normal grass.

Your mother would lose what little was left of her mind if she saw you in your dress with  _ completely bare legs, _ but...

... Well, she wasn’t here, was she?

...

... the Cheshire, who’d been sat watching you perform your tasks (you really hoped he wasn’t expecting you to remove your dress and sit there in your chemise), suddenly decidedly trotted over to you... 

And jumped up into your lap? 

He was surprisingly heavy- a decently sized cat, no doubt about it. You lifted your hands up in surprise as he made himself quite at home; kneading the dress over your bare knees before stretching, a  _ very _ happy expression on his feline face as he settled himself down to rest.

...

... You weren’t sure why, but... you felt far more forgiving of him when he was in his cat form. Tricks and slights and impolite behaviour could be ignored and forgotten because it was, quite simply, in the very  _ nature  _ of a cat to do such things. You  _ expected _ that sort of thing.

... So you allowed him to sit on your lap, listening to his gentle, rolling purr.

...

You couldn’t help yourself. He looked so very soft, so very fluffy. You reached a hand out... and stroked him from between the ears to the ridge of his back.

... Lord, he  _ was _ the softest thing you’d ever touched. The kind of fur your hand just  _ sinks  _ into, a pure cloud of white and blue.. It was impossible to stop the tiny gasp that escaped your mouth, or your hand as it reached up and petted him again. _ So soft! _

He didn’t protest; in fact, his wonderful eyes closed, his purring getting stronger and louder as he kneaded your dress. You took that as an invitation to continue eagerly petting him and enjoying such wondrous softness.

...

... You didn’t know why everyone had been so afraid of you going into the woods. The oh-so-terrifying Cheshire was nothing more than an overly friendly cat.

Eventually, as you let the sunshine warm you up, your petting just turned to gentle scritching behind his big silky ears... and before long, he was napping on his side, and your hand was merely idly resting on his intensely fluffy, almost  _ downy  _ soft body.

...

“Cat?” You asked, after what felt like forever relaxed against the tree. He responded by flicking one of his ears in your direction.

“Might... I ask  _ why  _ you led me in circles for so long, when you clearly have the capacity to let me out?” 

...

“...well.” He purred, peeking one sparkling eye open, tail sweeping across your dress.“if you  _ really  _ want to know...”

...

“... it’s because you are simply the  _ cutest  _ thing when you’re frustrated.”

...

... Your scowl apparently wasn’t enough to stop your cheeks from reddening, and you removed your hand from him. “Seriously?”

“heheh. see?” He grinned, cocking his head. “your face goes pink, all your hair frizzes up, and your cheeks puff out like a yabberjook. your voice gets higher, too.”

“I can’t believe I was starting to think you were a somewhat decent creature.”

“what?” He said, with the tone of someone who was pretending they didn’t know what they’d done, rolling onto his back to expose his incredibly fluffy tubby belly. (You had to force down the desire to pet him again.) “tell me, have you never held a pretty little insect in your hands, and when it tries to run across your palm and escape... you simply lay one hand after the other, trapping it in a cyclical hell to admire it a moment longer?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

There was a loud ‘poof’ sound, and a rush of blue smoke-

...

-and Sans was a skeleton again. Blocking out all the light, straddling your lap, face mere inches from yours... leaning over you with a  _ wicked  _ grin on his face.

Immediately, you sucked in a tiny gasp.

“well...” His clawed phalange drifted up and traced along your jaw, as delicately as if he were tracing the rim of a flower petal. “maybe you’re the insect, pet.”

... “... I-I...I...” You squeaked, brain only just stopping short of exploding. 

H-he was so  _ close... _ so close you could feel his body heat, you could  _ smell _ him... his brother had smelt of tea and warm golden afternoons, but Cheshire, he... he smelt of the deep, cool and ancient forests, of dusty bluebells and dewy wildflowers...

“heh. i, i?” His eyelights glowed serenely against his silhouetted face, pupils slowly widening, as a housecat’s does when it zeros in on a mouse. “i’m upset that a cat other than myself seems to have your tongue.”

“... W-wait.” You gasped, trying to push yourself back against the tree. Your face was so hot it was almost physically painful.  _ Why is my heart pounding?! _ “I-”

Before you could sputter out the last of your sentence, he leant forward and easily closed the distance between you- and he ran his  _ tongue  _ up your face- from the bottom of your jaw to the corner of your cheek in one smooth motion. Upon feeling the warm and  _ wet _ appendage drag across your skin a shiver ran up your back that made every hair on your body stand on end.

You _ squealed, _ shoving him with both hands; they passed through him, his form vanishing in a wisp of smoke and a silky echoing chuckle. 

Immediately you stumbled to your feet and grabbed one of your shoes that’d been resting in the sun, turning and throwing it as hard as you could at where his chuckle had teleported to- the branches of the tree behind you. He ducked his head to the side and the shoe whipped past his ear, casually reclining a ways above you.

“Y-you  _ licked  _ me!” You shrieked, completely outraged and all but steaming at the ears, bringing your sleeve up to wipe at your face.  _ How DARE he!? _ “You licked me, you... you  _ devil!” _

“heheh. like i said.” He leant forward a tad, propping his chin up on his elbows, eyelights knife-sharp slits again. “the cutest frustrated little thing. and ever so delicious, too...”

You made a disgusted noise in the back of your throat despite your crippling embarrassment and pounding heart.

“... heh... tell you what.” He winked at you. “repayment for letting me get a taste. if you answer a riddle, i’ll send you on your way out of the forest.”

...

You paused, lowering the other shoe you were about to launch at him.

“... Wait. Really?” You blinked. “You will?”

“mhm. you’re dry now, aren’t you? might as well be getting on your way.”

...

You narrowed your eyes, cheeks beginning to cool off. “... You’ll... send me the  _ correct _ way? The way out of this forest that isn’t the way I came in.”

“of course, of course...” He purred, casually sharpening a phalange on the tree’s bark.

“You promise?”

“why, don’t you trust me?”

The withering look you gave him was answer enough, and he let out a rolling chuckle as his tail curled in the air. “heheh, fair enough.”

“You  _ must _ swear.”

“fuck.”

...

...

You... you just couldn’t help it. You let out a little ungainly snort and broke into giggles that you attempted to stifle by putting your hand over your mouth.

You completely missed the warm, adoring smile he gave you.

“alright, alright.” He shut his sockets. “i swear to guide you out of the woods if you answer my riddle, lest i get eaten by a ringlebuck, cross my heart and hope to fly, pinkie promise on a goose feather, all that.” 

“... Sure. Alright.” Your hands settled on your hips. “Hit me.”

“... what has 10 legs on one side and 12 on the other, goes up when it goes down, is colder than the coldest snow yet hotter than the brightest flame, darker than the sky at night, will kill me if i eat it, and spins like a top when you give it a twirl?”

...

...

“Cabbages.”

...

... He opened his eyes and blinked, twice in quick succession, his usual calm and haughty expression slipping for just a moment as he looked down at you.

...

“... well, that’s...” He cocked his head, inquisitively. “... that’s not right at all.”

“You didn’t say I had to answer it correctly, though.” You pointed out, unable to stop the triumphant, beaming smile breaking out across your face at the knowledge you knocked this vexatious cat down a peg for once. “You merely stated I had to  _ answer. _ I did; my answer is cabbages. And now, as per our promise, you  _ must _ guide me on a route out of this forest that isn’t the way I came in.”

...

For a split second, just a tick on the clock, Sans stared at you with a face and grin as blank as an unused parchment.

...

And then a new, bigger smile wove onto his face, even larger and wider than before.

“dearie, dearie me...” He hummed, so deeply it made the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. “it seems i’ve been beaten at my own game, hasn’t it? perhaps you’re more minx than mouse after all.”

He vanished from the tree branch and reappeared in his cat form, several paces ahead of you, smiling in a way you could only describe as the smile one might give the person they’d just realised they’d fallen in love with.

But that would be silly. Wouldn’t it?

“come then... better get your stockings on. i suppose i have a deal to uphold.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The answer to his riddle was nothing, by the way :3
> 
> Edit: Lovely fanart from ophiebot on Tumblr- [Cheshire and his lady enjoying the sun!](https://llamagoddessofficial.tumblr.com/post/618672890299187200/that-is-an-excellently-chubby-kitty-and-i)  
> Beautiful piece from Nachocici, [Cheshire lookin mighty spooky,](https://llamagoddessofficial.tumblr.com/post/621791880711127040/i-read-your-wondertale-au-story-i-always-adore) c'mon, he's so trustworthy, don't you trust your friend...?


	5. Mesopelagic - (HT! Cecaelia Sans x Reader)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aka-indulgence back at it again inspiring me and making me Yearn!!!! This time, it was for a deep-sea cecaelia Sans... that being a sea creature who's half octopus half man.

It was always much easier to fish at night.

You didn’t do it only for the better catches, and the fact that there were fish that would only come to the surface when the sun was deep below the horizon. You also did it because it was  _ always  _ quieter. No other vessels, no swimmers, no screaming idiots terrorising the local wildlife as they went roaring past on their jetskis. Just you, and your little rowboat... out on the empty glassy waters with nothing interrupting the endless sky but the gently twinkling dim lights of the town across the bay. The creaking of the hull and, once every while, the whizz and minute splash of your fishing line.

... But you weren’t here to fish this time.

Your mother and father would’ve disapproved of you going out into open waters in the night, when there was nobody around to witness a possible attack... if they knew that was what you were doing. But you’d been at it for almost four months now, completely without incident; your boat had no engine after all, no way to attract unwanted attentions. The only way you could come across a siren and get in trouble would be completely by chance, or if you stood up in your boat and screamed so loud your voice carried over the water for miles.

...

You’d come back to the same spot today, arms aching from rowing yourself such a distance without break. The same spot you’d been visiting for almost a week now, your curiosity more and more insatiable as time went on.

Every time you came to this spot... an area next to an insignificant little rock that was barely covered at low tide and invisible at high tide... something  _ strange  _ would happen.

It was like... the world around you would skip.

Your position on the water would shift, and your brain would suddenly feel fuzzy and soft, like a mist had settled over you... as if you’d only just woken up from an incredibly long nap that left you wondering what day it was. You always quickly regained your senses but it was such a  _ strange _ occurrence; every single time you were near that rock at night, it would happen. In the day you had no such experience and even the evening left you eventless- it only happened when the blanket of night covered the waters.

The strange skip would bring with it another feeling... one you weren’t familiar with. Like someone had just whispered something loving into your ear, or someone special had held you close enough to feel their pulse. Your cheeks would flush, your heart would start to pound.. It was strange, new.... But oddly exhilarating.

Should you have kept returning? Probably not. But you weren’t dead and your curiosity was a terribly powerful thing. You felt lured to the area, pulled back by some invisible force... some strange desperation to figure out what the hell was happening to you.

So here you were, in your little rowboat, drifting in the mirror-flat water under a starry sky, waiting for something to happen. You couldn’t deny that your heart was beating a lot faster in your chest than normal- your attention was caught by every tiny splash, every glint of moonlight on the water... 

...  _ Would _ something happen?

The seconds felt like minutes, and the minutes felt like hours, tiny waves lapping against your boat. You had to steady it every now and then, not too keen on accidentally bumping the hull against the rock you were hanging around near. You tapped your finger against the wooden oar handle.

...

... Eventually, boredom starting to infect you, you sighed and leant up against the side of the boat, just electing to stare into the almost eerily calm water. You could just about see your gently rippling reflection in the surface... you oftentimes found yourself glad that you had some kind of boat to keep you away from that darkness.

...

You saw something. 

It was like... a little flicker of colour, a distance below the surface, as if a tiny silvery creature had darted away. You immediately sat up, squinting, trying to focus on what was below instead of _on_ the surface... 

_... Again! _ A flash of cyan blue that curled back downwards. You couldn’t tell how far down it was, but that didn’t stop you leaning further over the edge of the boat to try and see- was it moonlight glancing off a fish’s body? But it seemed to  _ glow, _ not reflect... perhaps some strange bioluminescent algae? Maybe someone had dropped a light into the water and it was only just now floating to the surface...

Another one! You couldn’t help your tiny gasp, eyes wide. This time, a stunning neon purple,  _ absolutely _ glowing; it must’ve been some tiny glowing fish because it almost looked like it did a  _ loop _ before it disappeared. And it was quickly followed by several more in a bright, spring green... then more in blue... you’d never seen anything like this before! Was there a shoal of them? This was incredible!

There were so many more- flashes, darts... all seeming to come from one direction, spiralling outwards. Instead of being random colours and shapes they became... uniform? You tilted your head. A pulse of blue, a pulse of cyan, a pulse of purple... you kept staring, amazement starting to fall into confusion... what  _ were  _ they...? It was starting to look less like lots of small creatures, and more like... one big...

... Blue, purple, pink... pulsating, getting closer... you couldn’t look away, it was so... _mesmerising..._

Green... blue...

...

... Purple...

\---

He’d never tire of the expression you made when you saw his colours for the ‘first’ time. He smiled in relief as he broke the surface, one hand holding onto the side of the boat and the other drifting up to lovingly trace your cheek with a clawed and scarred phalange. 

Sans lost his voice a  _ long  _ time ago- back when he was cocky. Back when he was  _ young,  _ when he still thought being a siren and an apex predator meant you never had to care, or watch out... when he underestimated just how dangerous prey could really be.

He assumed that slow-moving meant an easy meal. By the time he came to his senses and realised just  _ what  _ he’d attacked, just what he’d thrown himself into, he was wrapped in the jellyfish mermonster’s thread-like tentacles. The almost invisible, delicate, seemingly  _ harmless _ strands tangled and curled around him like a ghost net... every millimeter of contact was like a red hot knife brutally carving into the bones. Searing lightning bolts of pain melting away at the ossified matter,  _ burning _ into them, pain so intense and electric he could do nothing but thrash every limb and scream. 

He was lucky the monster swam away, panicked, taking their tentacles with him- if they’d chosen to stay he absolutely would’ve died. He fled to the first deep cave he could find and spent the next several days curled in a shaking, tortured, convulsing ball as his body slowly processed the pain and toxins. 

... He still bore the marks of that day. Long, warped and discoloured scars across his ribcage and arms where the poisons had disfigured and melted into his bones... one over his skull that malformed his eyelights into a single red orb... and one that cut from the corner of his jaw to the opposite cheek, slicing directly over his mouth.

That was the one that stole his voice.

A siren without a voice was normally a death sentence. And he knew that; terrified weeks of desperately trying to speak again over and over and  _ over  _ had resulted in him regaining his ability to whisper; but he could no longer sing. If he couldn’t sing, he couldn’t hunt... if he were any other siren he’d be dead.

Except... he wasn’t any other siren. 

He was a cecaelia... half octopus. 

It took a little getting used to; he went hungry for almost a month. But he knew about cuttlefish that did it. And once he figured out how to rapidly cycle the colours on his tentacles to  _ visually _ lure his meals instead of _ auditorily, _ to  _ hypnotise  _ his prey... his young body began to develop alongside this discovery. 

His tentacles turned from blue to black, and increased significantly in size. His colours became brighter and his control over pigments widened. Down the sides of each tentacle, he grew lines of perfectly round and perfectly spaced spots... that he could _ light up, _ blinking them on and off in interesting patterns to attract fish directly to him instead of having to seek out something to capture.

... And once he understood how to create light in small amounts in those little spots, he began to do it in larger amounts. He figured out how to make light in the main skin of his tentacles... just patches at first, but soon it spread to great swathes of his body. His control over his powers became greater and greater... soon, he could light up any part of his lower body he wanted in any colour he chose. It cost more energy but it was  _ so  _ worth it... he could attract so many clueless fish with alluring light shows, he had more than enough food and energy to experiment. He moved his regular hunting grounds to much deeper waters, avoiding the interfering sun and other sirens as much as possible...

... Until one day...

... Well... there was no need to go too in-depth. One thing led to another, and he discovered humans weren’t immune to his hypnosis.

The disappearance of the fishing vessel’s crew was attributed to normal sirens, and written off as just yet more fishermen ignoring the warning to bring noise-cancelling apparatus on their journeys with them.

He would spend the day relaxing deep, deep in the mesopelagic ‘twilight’ zone, where sunlight was less than a glimmer and it was cool and dark and perfectly quiet and potential meals flocked to his lights in droves. He was the only siren who dared leave the surface, only returning in the cover of dark, following the nightly ascension of his other prey and occasionally catching lone humans off-guard.

It was a perfect life.

...

... At least, he thought it was. Before he met you.

Sans had seen many things in the depths. Creatures beyond the imagination, of all sizes and shapes and colours and consistencies, thriving and bizarre alien-like life forms that seemed to casually disobey every surface rule he’d taken for granted.

But somehow, in a way he couldn’t describe... none of it came close to you. 

He first saw you on a starless, clouded night- the perfect night for a hunt. He’d followed your little rowboat from the shores to (at least in his opinion) an impressively large distance from the coast considering how dark it was and how there was nobody around for miles. Were you brave, or stupid? Pity he’d never know.

... He did his usual. Cause a small commotion in the water that makes prey look right where he wants. Then send out beautiful, glowing pulses of neon coloured light across his tentacles to attract the attention further... and before they can figure out what they’re looking at, settle into a waving rhythm of colour and blinking brightness that renders them as helpless as a newborn turtle. Even his eyelight beat in a mesmerising rhythm- simple. And the first parts went off without a hitch... you were  _ embarrassingly  _ easy to entice to glimpse closer, almost falling off the edge of your boat you leant so far to attempt to get a look at whatever was glowing below.

He emerged after he was certain you were totally stupefied, grinning, reaching up to get a hold of whichever limb or item of clothing was closest and pull you in... and...

... He saw your face.

... His hands stilled, halfway out of the water, sockets widening and grin falling. He almost broke the rhythm of his hypnosis waves, only regaining control of himself by a plankton’s breadth. 

Your expression was almost blank, as most of his victims were. Except... 

... You had this soft, delicate flush of  _ awe  _ in your heavy eyelids and parted lips that was slowly draining as your brain and body lost connection with one another. A fading glimpse of the amazement you’d felt seeing his display under the surface. Just at that moment, as if on cue, the moon emerged from behind the clouds... it framed your hair and face in a halo of gentle blueish light.

... 

... You were so  _ pretty. _

Whatever breath he had in his chest was stolen away in an instant as his usually quiet and unheeded Soul began to beat wildly in his ribcage, the sound filling his mind. You looked so  _ soft, _ and you were staring  _ right at him... _ He felt like he was suddenly drowning in your eyes, falling, sinking...  _ is this how it feels to be hypnotised?  _ His gaze travelled down to your lips, warm and plump, dried from the salty air but nonetheless looking just... 

... just  _ delicious... _

... He wanted to touch. He wanted to  _ touch. _ Some of his tentacles had already latched onto the side of your boat without him noticing, suckering on and sliding closer to you, still pulsing with colours like a beating heart... He reached his previously stilled hand up, a single clawed phalange outstretched....  _ why am i shaking...?  _ You were still looking at him, his face was flush with magic and his Soul was  _ pounding, _ he wanted your eyes on him forever-

- _ a large boat engine. _

It snapped him out of the trance in an instant, the lights on his tentacles shimmering and going out as his intense concentration broke. It was so distant your human ears probably couldn’t even pick it up but he caught it like someone he knew had screamed; he’d recognise that engine type anywhere.

_ Siren patrol boat. _

It felt like his Soul was tearing when he had to turn away from you and dive back under the surface, retreating back to the ocean floor to avoid the heavily armed and dangerous vessel looking for creatures exactly like him.  And if it tore when he left, it shattered when he re-emerged after the engine finally faded... only to find himself bobbing alone in the ocean, your little boat nowhere to be seen.

You’d gone.

...

Cecaelia couldn’t love. They weren’t  _ supposed _ to love. He told himself that, over and over again, swimming in circles in the lightless twilight zone even as his tentacles twitched every time he pictured your face. Cecaelia weren’t like other sirens, who bonded or remained in family pods for their entire lives- his kind were bad tempered and completely solitary. They would meet only to fight or to mate. And even then, the fights were short, and the male and female barely spent more than an hour together before going their separate ways again. He didn’t know (nor care) if his parents were alive, or any of his hundreds of siblings; he was alone from the moment his life began. That’s how he liked it.

...

That’s how he thought he liked it.

... And yet here he was. Soul aching, returning to the surface again for the fifth time this week, like a lovesick madman... luring you into a hypnosis so he could spend just a few precious moments close enough to touch you without you running away. Here he was again, emerging from the water... once again, one hand on the edge of the boat and the other reaching up to cup your soft, warm cheek and thread his fingers through your hair, lovingly admiring the entranced expression on your face.

... He didn’t know why you kept coming back; from your reactions to his lights over and over it seemed like his hypnosis wiped your memory. But it wasn’t like he was complaining; he was a siren, you were a human. He knew how you’d react if you knew he was here... he knew this was his only chance to be close to you without pulling you in and drowning you.

He was listening out very carefully every night he was with you. Listening for engines, for the telltale rumble of something manmade, monitoring how close they were to the two of you.

... But tonight? On this starry, silent, perfectly calm night? The waters were quiet as far as he could tell. Nobody was going to interrupt.

And for some reason, looking up into your eyes as his longing only grew... that silence made something in him snap.

He couldn’t hold back. His grip on the edge of the boat tightened so much the wood began to creak and groan, his tongue felt thick in his mouth as water lapped against his shoulders... He was  _ tired  _ of holding back. You were so  _ close, _ and yet so far away from him- he could hear your slow breaths and count every pore and pockmark on your cheeks but he couldn’t press you close to him. He could hold your face, but...

... It wasn’t  _ enough. _

_ i want  _ **_more._ **

Self control wasn’t exactly something sirens like him had in spades. He spent one last second, listening out for patrol boats... listening out for a reason to hesitate...

...

Nothing.

His smile felt like it was splitting his face.

Magic started to jump in his system, fizzing in excitement- he suckered on tightly to both sides of the vessel and, in one smooth motion, pulled himself out of the ocean and into the boat. It rocked back and forth for a little while but soon steadied; he could feel it sink lower into the water with the addition of his weight. Such a simple action he'd been thinking of for so long... the cool air felt foreign and prickly against his wet tentacles.

... And there you were.

Immediately, he sucked in a breath between his teeth, feeling his eyelight expand, completely overcome by how  _ small  _ you were. You were barely half his size... such a delicate little thing, still wearing such an entranced and placid expression...

Suddenly, the tiny distance between the two of you was too much to bare. That fierce desperation to have you close was setting his bones aflame from the inside out; he all but lurched forwards on pure instinct, wrapping his arms around you, pulling you in,  _ finally _ pressing your tiny body to his ribcage. 

You were so  _ warm. _

He gasped again, already hopelessly lost in the feeling of having you in his arms. So warm on his cold body, so soft, so full of _life..._ You fit against him like the puzzle piece he’d been missing since the moment he emerged into the world, his Soul was  _ pounding _ at his ribs as if even the few inches of bone between it and you were too much to bear, he didn't care that he was soaking your clothes. 

The tentacles that weren’t steadying his body in the boat (every inch of it smelt of you) immediately began to wrap possessively around you. They were restless, they couldn’t stop moving, every part of him elated to finally hold you... curling around your arms, your legs, your waist, slipping under your shirt and touching your bare lower back- the appendages were flashing with uncontrollable bursts of light and colour as his emotions overtook him and his concentration continued to waver. Each tentacle was thicker at the base than your leg... he shuddered and grinned, thinking about how securely you were coiled... how tightly you were trapped, how easy it would be to just  _ squeeze... _

_ “... oh, my little star...” _ he cooed, a deep, gravelly whisper. His voice was so very quiet, and it’d been so long since he used it... a secret part of him, reserved just for you. He slipped his claws into the hair at the back of your head, other arm secured around you middle... keeping your head tilted up to him.  _ “you don’t know what you’ve done to me...” _

He could see the own glow of his eyelights twinkling in your eyes. He was falling into them again... a magnetic attraction was pulling him in closer. He was absorbed in your warmth and softness, his face was so close to yours he could feel your warm breath fanning over his teeth and cheeks, you made him feel  _ complete,  _ he wanted to be  _ closer, i want to be closer, i want _ **_more..._ **

Before he could stop and think about what he was doing, his Soul let out a pulse... and he closed the distance, kissing you.

... Just for a moment, everything was right. Your lips were just as sweet as he thought they’d be... chapped and dry but soft and so  _ very  _ warm. The hand in your hair drifted down to your neck, tentacles curling around your waist and legs and one suckering onto your wrist like it was trying to hold your hand. He felt whole, satisfied,  _ complete, _ he just  _ knew  _ in that moment you were all he wanted, all he could ever need...

...

You inhaled.

And it wasn’t a normal, slow inhale. It was sharp, shocked, like someone waking up from a nightmare. 

He opened his sockets...

... To see two very alert and conscious-looking eyes staring up at him.

_ you were awake. _

... He realised immediately what had happened, grin and Soul dropping like stones. It was like someone had doused his whole body, the consuming fire in his bones put out in an instant and replaced with an aching ice.

He pulled away, tentacles recoiling back from your body. 

_ kissing you had taken up your whole vision, hadn’t it? if you couldn’t see the lights, the hypnosis wouldn’t... _

... You jolted when you seemed to realise you weren’t dreaming, flinching back out of his arms and bringing up your arms as if to defend yourself with a tiny cry of shock breaking out of your throat.

It was like being back in the grip of the jellyfish stings. Shocks of freezing pain tore across his body with his Soul at the epicentre as he watched you pull away, squeezing all the breath out of his body, his tentacles pulsing a distressed navy blue and his eyelights extinguishing like candle flames, _no, please-_

He panicked. He couldn’t think of anything but getting away from the pain. Without a second’s hesitation, he turned and threw himself over the side of the tiny vessel, back into the ocean, back into the dark.

\---

The boat rocked so violently from the creature jumping into the water that you stumbled back and fell on your ass, crying out and grabbing both sides of the vessel tightly to avoid being thrown out of it. It threw itself from side to side like a bull trying to dismount its rider; as _soon_ as you could force yourself to open your eyes and push yourself up you were on your knees, swaying, terrified and confused even as the boat calmed.

That was, without doubt, a siren. And a _ cecaelia... _

Your heart was hammering in a completely different way to usual, you could feel it in your throat and temples, your head was  _ swimming. _ Your clothes and the inside of the boat were completely soaked, there were light sucker-shaped rings on your wrist, your lips tasted like salt...

... Your lips...

... You brought a hand up to your mouth, glancing to the water just off the side of the boat- it was still rippling and bubbling from the cecaelia diving into it only moments ago.

He’d  _ kissed _ you.

One moment you were looking into the ocean and admiring a strange pretty light, the next... a giant skeletal face was taking up your entire vision with firm lips on yours, a cold and writhing pressure all over your body; your gut reaction had been that he was  _ eating you. _

... You were so confused. You couldn’t think straight and adrenaline was rushing through your system, your fingers were shaking so hard you couldn’t grab the oars- he was definitely kissing you, the intimacy in the way he held you and pressed his lips to yours needed no translation. But  _ why? _ Was it some kind of method of seduction that hypnotised you so he could kill you? And... and why did he  _ run? _ He had you trapped in his tentacles, he was almost  _ twice _ your size, he could’ve just snapped your spine like a toothpick... you shuddered. Why did you being conscious make any difference, why did that make him... was he  _ really _ trying to eat you?

... And that face he made, when you pulled back... it was like you’d  _ struck _ him...

  
... You swallowed, finally getting a solid grip on the oars and _immediately_ starting to row away, arms numb to everything; pain included. 

You could think about the implications of this  _ close _ encounter more when you were back on dry land.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Definitely gonna have to do a sequel to this, nothing like a spooky octoman to turn your life around, huh?


	6. Zookeeper - (HT! Naga Sans x Reader)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ey look, I know this is the second HT!Naga story. I just think nagas are neat and I think Ht!Sans is neat so of COURSE I'm going to combine them
> 
> I finally managed to find my footing again in terms of inspiration for writing, and I took the decision to go with it instead of trying to force myself to work on something else. This was the result! I think you guys'll be seeing a lot more of these ministories now that I'm planning on just going where inspiration takes me more often. Enjoy!

Nervous was an understatement.

“Keep track of him at all times. Always make sure you can get to the door, _never_ let him cut you off. Don’t underestimate him just because he’s blindfolded.”

You could feel your heart hammering in your chest so loudly it was getting hard to pay full attention to Maggie, the senior zoo staff member in front of you, hard to keep a grip on the large and _heavy_ bucket of meat clenched tightly in one hand and the hooked feeding pole in the other. You weren’t even supposed to be doing this, you were too low down on the zoo staff ladder… you should’ve been feeding the little snakes or the herbivores, you should be _years_ away from this level of care! The naga were already _leagues_ above your pay grade, and now they wanted you to feed the biggest one of them all!?

_I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t be doing this._ You cringed- _but I can’t refuse, I need this job!_

“Talk to him, move loudly, make sure he knows where you are because the last thing you want is to spook him. I know you’ve had good experiences with the other two naga but that doesn’t mean you should _ever_ let your guard down, understand?”

“… Yes.” You said, voice barely above a whisper, grip sweaty on the feeding pole. You couldn’t help it, your eyes flicked down to her left hand- the one she didn’t _have_ anymore, the one that had just a wrist stump remaining.

“… You’ll be fine. We’ll all be watching, if something does happen for some reason we can get in and help you.” She took on a slightly more comforting tone, noticing your line of sight. Her injury was the reason she wasn’t the one bringing the naga his food, given her senior position and superior experience. “I got this when I was young and cocky, and because I followed the safety protocol I lost a hand and not a neck. So long as you stick to the rules and don’t do anything stupid, you won’t have a problem with him. Ok?”

“A-are you sure I’m…”

“Yes, you’re ready. You’ve dealt with the other two.” She cut over you, turning you by the shoulder. “Now go, before Skull gets hungrier.”

And just like that, you were pushed through the door of the enclosure, that shut firmly behind you. The secondary door opened… and despite the fact that every part of you was cold and shaking, you had no choice but to go forward. As scared as you were, someone needed to get the naga fed… _someone_ needed to go straight into the beast’s den.

… You stepped into the enclosure.

It was built to resemble a near-surface cave; the walls and floor were made of slightly uneven smoothed stone, with a few windowed ‘cracks’ in the fake stalactite ceiling providing enough daylight to see by. There were some interesting objects to provide a little enrichment, like ‘boulders’, patches of fake grass, a little filtered waterfall dribbling into a relatively shallow pool… and a small tunnel, leading to a den with no windows he could juuust about curl up in so he could have some privacy.

… Inside that den, you could see a hint of a steely blue-grey… scales.

… You sucked in a tiny breath through your nose, and stepped further forward, following the zoo protocol of tapping the metal end of the pole lightly against the bucket of food to let him know it was feeding time. It took a moment for there to be a reaction, but… slowly, surely, the mass of muscle resting inside the den began to _shift_.

Giant claws hooked over the stone edges of the den entrance, bone hands as big as your head… the thing about Red and Sans is they were very _vocal_ naga, Sans regularly hissing and snarling and Red making curious rattling and purring sounds. But with Skull… there was nothing but the low sliding sound of scales against rock, that sounded long and oh-so _heavy._

… He emerged, head moving into the light, vicious cranium crack and tight fitted black blindfold plain to see… with just his skeletal torso out he was already almost as big as you. A shot of panic doused your system and you had to clench your teeth together to stop yourself from crying, or dropping everything and bolting back through the door. The rest of him followed after; the long snake tail that made up over three quarters of his body length coiling behind him as he raised himself up, gathering like a loosened rope, thicker than you were wide… faded blue and littered with scars that just didn’t seem to catch the light in the same way the other two nagas did.

He was… huge. You knew this already, but there was something different about seeing him with _nothing in the way._

… You had to swallow the terror again, no longer able to tap on the food bucket as your hands were shaking too much. _I’m fine. I’m fine. The door is right behind me._

… He was keeping his distance from you, head turned downward slightly, facing in the direction of the bucket. A flash of blue around his mouth- his forked tongue flickering rapidly, which could either signal curiosity, hunger or both. The pounding in your chest became more intense.

“… H-hey, big guy.” You stammered, keeping your voice as gentle as possible, as low and soft as you could in order to not spook him. He reacted immediately, his head cocking a little, raising to face directly at you instead of the bucket as if making eye contact despite the blindfold- _just get this over with, (y/n), just get this over with._ “… I-I’m… supposed to talk to you, to let you know where I am… talking worked with the other two, I… h-hope it works with you, too.”

You put the bucket on the ground, sliding a decently heavy chunk of the special treated naga-friendly meat onto it. Skull had a unique feeding hook; it was much longer than usual, slightly difficult to handle, but reinforced along the inside to facilitate easier feeding from a distance. You raised the pole with the hung meat and slid it slowly closer to him, keeping careful watch of the way his tongue would flicker toward the food… you were so ready to bolt. You just needed to get this done.

“I’m, uhm…” You felt like an idiot. You could feel all the other staff members watching. “The food’s on the hook. You probably know that already, but…”

… He moved forward and caught the chunk straight off the hook, swallowing it without any chewing or pausing, then going immediately back to sitting there, patiently, watching. _Waiting for more._ You brought the hook back, putting on another piece, moving it toward him again… careful to keep hold on the pole despite your sweaty palms.

… He was eating as quickly as your unpractised snail-pace would allow, but most notably.. without issue. You finally felt a droplet of relief in the sea of fear; he was eating normally, he wasn’t being aggressive or trying to approach… this was going pretty well, for your first time feeding the moodiest naga in the zoo.

“… There we go. Good, this is going good. Please don’t eat me.” You half-joked, repeating the process. Retract pole, hook meat, offer it out. Starting to get into a rhythm. “… I hope you’re always this relaxed with me. That would be really helpful.”

He took the meat again, obediently. You let out a tiny sigh; the more he just did what he was supposed to, the calmer and more comfortable you felt. He’d probably learned by now that it was just best to get the food offered, instead of biting the hand that was feeding him.

… Or biting it _off._

“… Everyone’s watching. I think they’re waiting for me to mess up. Do something dumb and get kicked out.” You mumbled. You felt… surprisingly not-awkward? Sometimes, when you spoke to the animals, you felt weird because they clearly didn’t care… but in this case, you got a strange feeling from the way his head would twitch and follow you despite the meat, how his tongue would flicker only when you’d stopped talking. It felt like he was… _actually listening?_

Besides. Nobody could fault you for talking to the naga to keep it calm and not-murderous as you passed him food from as large a distance as possible, right? If it worked, it worked, and you kept your limbs.

“… There we go.” You said, as you passed him the last piece- you then tapped the side of the empty bucket with the hook like you’d been told to, so he’d hear the hollow sound and understand there was no more food, before you picked it up again. You felt… a lot less terrified? Still nervous, but not like you were about to throw up. 

“… Uhm… thank you.” Your voice was still pretty small. “For… being calm. I appreciate it.”

… He stayed where he was. You felt, again, like he was watching you, despite him having no vision.

…

You took a step back, ready to go back through the door and throw up… but as soon as your foot sounded against the stone floor…

_Everything_ about him changed. 

His lips and teeth parted… and the most _powerful_ hiss you’d _ever_ heard filtered out, _filling_ the room, tearing through the air and right through your body. Like someone had set off a huge firework but it just kept hissing and hissing and _hissing_ , deep and loud and intertwined with an open-mouthed growl, it echoed off the walls and shook everything inside. It was as if someone had flipped a switch in his head, something inside him had snapped; his shoulders rose, tail beginning to move across the floor and rearrange itself. It sounded like… a _warning._

You froze, heart dropping into your stomach, all the warmth and colour draining from your face.

_…Oh no._

… The hissing stopped, but he kept his new position. He’d stopped in a more aggressive, coiled posture like a tightened spring, tongue now flickering constantly.

…

“… Maggie.” You said, voice cracking, essentially calling for help. Your eyes were locked onto him, you couldn’t remember _any_ of the safety protocols for aggressive naga, every part of you was petrified, you couldn’t feel your hands or toes you could only feel the pounding in your own head. You were afraid to blink- _it was going TOO well, I’ve used up my luck, it’s all gonna go wrong now!_

_“… Okay, just relax.”_ You heard her voice over the exhibit speaker system but you daren’t turn your head away to look at where she was. _“He probably just doesn’t trust you yet, and is getting possessive over food he thinks might still be in the bucket. Okay? Use the pole to push the bucket toward him.”_

You swallowed, following her advice; you set the bucket down without taking your gaze off him as if your feet were glued to the earth, and then used the end of the pole to push the bucket across the floor. It made an ugly scraping/rattling sound as it moved.

… He wasn’t even turning toward it. He wasn’t paying attention to it. His attention seemed steadfastly on you, if his head direction was any way to tell. You were sweating, your neck hairs were prickling.

_“Alright. Now back away slowly.”_

… One step back.

He _immediately_ started hissing again, even louder this time, with deafening aggravation… he lowered his head.

_A strike position._

You didn’t hear Maggie’s shout over the speaker system, you could hear nothing but your heart and his hissing. The rabbit-like urge to _RUN_ overtook your whole body, something in you shattered, and you staggered backward with the intent to turn and dive for the door.

… The speed at which he crossed the entire enclosure would’ve been incredible in any other circumstance. 

He lurched with all the power readied in the wound muscles in his tail, striking forward so quickly it was like he vanished from his spot, and suddenly you were _screaming_ as the pole was knocked out of your hands. Suddenly something huge and hard was _gripping_ you and your clothes and your legs went out from under you, the world was dark and turning and you brought your hands up over your head in an instinctive defensive posture, you faintly heard the sound of dozens of voices shouting out in synchrony but everything was _ringing_ , the heels of your boots were dragging so quickly across the floor it felt like the friction was going to burn through them and kicking your legs into nothingness as a pathetic attempt at attack/escape did genuinely _nothing_ , you cried out…

… And then just like that, your body came to a halt; you’d stopped moving.

You opened your eyes, forcing in deep terrified breaths, finding yourself in almost total darkness and taking only a few milliseconds to realise you were _inside his den_. It was so _cramped_ and the floor and walls were moving, _why were they moving,_ you put out a hand to try and steady yourself or get to your feet…

…

That wasn’t the floor or walls. Your hand landed on smooth, hard scales.

You were on _him_. You were on his coiled tail.

You made a sound you could only describe as a broken whimper-cry of fear and tried to sit up and get _some_ control, but it was almost impossible as he was still _moving_ , his body shifting and writhing underneath you and forcing you to only sink deeper into his scales, deeper into his hold. Something wound around you, starting from your chest and moving down to your knees, binding your legs together- and the scariest part was that you could _feel_ the power as he shifted, you could feel the _strength_ behind the scales when they pressed against you. He was a living muscle, and with little more than a flex he could squeeze, and you’d go _squish_.

_That’s what’s going to happen. He’s going to constrict me to death!_ Your breathing was getting so fast your chest was _heaving_ , you tried to push the coils on your middle but it was like pushing the unmoving floor, you were getting _dizzy_ with panic, you started to beat them with your fists, _S-someone help me-!_

His face came into view. Hovering over you, only just silhouetted by the light creeping into the entrance of the den.

… Once again, everything in your body just… stopped. 

All thought, all movement, everything froze, as you stared up at him with wide eyes.

… He’d removed his own blindfold. A bright, blood red ring was gazing down at you… fuzzy around the edges, the hole in the centre nothing but a dot.

… His own movements were slowing, as he apparently settled on the position he was in. You were almost horizontal, your head lifted up ever-so-slightly, everything lower than your chest totally bound and covered and crushed under more of his body. He was so _close_.

…

He was warm. Like summer’s day. And he was… just _staring._

…

You could hear absolute havoc breaking outside of his den. But even so, your breathing was slowing… you were calming, despite it all. Something about his eye… the way he was hanging his head… how his tongue just ever-so-slightly peeked out of his mouth, as if only curious…

… How he hadn’t killed you yet. He wasn’t squeezing. You felt so, so very tiny, trapped in the coils of a giant naga…

_Why hasn’t he…?_

…

A single, sharp phalange moved over to your face. You naturally flinched leaned away at the sight of such huge claws coming close, sucking in a breath… and as soon as you did, he… paused? He took a moment, with his your-head-sized hand just hanging there… 

… Like he was giving you a second? He held your eye.

… When he started moving again, he moved _so_ slowly. So gently… and he turned the hand over, brushing the back of his thick knuckle across your cheek with a feather-light touch. His hands were warm, too.

…

It was a like a cat, the way his eyelight widened, blowing to fill his whole socket.

He seemed to lose whatever self control was making him move slowly, and instead his massive head leant in, before you could so much as muster the energy or presence of mind to _squeak_ he pressed his face flush against the side of yours with his teeth just under your ear. Instead you just let in another tiny breath of shock and felt a shiver travel across the whole length of your body- he was _nuzzling,_ with an unmistakable joy, parts of his tail moving ever-so-slightly like he just couldn’t _contain_ himself. In amongst the gleeful nuzzling he took a few inquisitive breaths in your hair, his tongue flickering out and surprising you with how ticklish it was- you brought your shoulder up in defence but he seemed to like that tiny reaction and did it again, chasing your sensitive spots.

“G- ah, _stop!”_ You said, but less out of fear and more out of _ticklishness_ \- you couldn’t get away from him, it was like being fussed by a _giant_ overly affectionate puppy. He was breathing _right_ down your ear, and his breath and tongue made everything _prickle,_ you tried to put your hands over your neck but he wasn’t having it. “… G-guys? Guys, are you out there?!”

You distinctly heard someone mutter ‘oh my God, she’s alive’, before a sharp “Play dead! We’re coming to get you!” sounded pretty close to the den. 

… You saw Skull’s reaction- and by saw, you meant heard and _felt._ As soon as he seemed to realise they were approaching the entrance to his hide, he stopped nuzzling, face still against your neck… and a slow, upset snarl began to filter out of his chest, and seeing as you were _surrounded_ by him it was deep and so close it was _vibrating your insides._ At the same time, his snake body shifted and started to tighten, slowly moving to cover you more, bring you in further into his coils… trap you _underneath._

“N-no, no!” You said, panic at possibly being constricted to death rearing its head again. “Don’t come any closer without sedatives, _please!”_

“… What the _hell’s_ going on in there?!”

“H-he’s just… he’s just got me wrapped up.” You stammered, swallowing, wishing you could see them instead of the den ceiling right now; your voice had a strange, echoing quality inside the small space. “I-I can’t move. When you come closer it agitates him and he squeezes. Don’t come closer. _Please_ just go get sedatives.”

“… Are you sure you’re okay in there?” You could hear them backing up, thank _fuck._ And he could definitely hear them too, noticeably relaxing. “It’s gonna take us a while to get anything strong enough for him.”

… Skull let out a strange, deathly soft hiss, apparently _really_ liking your hair… so quiet, only the two of you could hear it. His scales were warm, and although you were trapped, it almost felt like he’d deliberately trapped you in this reclined position in order to make sure you were comfortable in his grip.

…

“Y-yeah, I… I think I’m fine for now. Just please don’t take too long.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zoo staff: Haha... maybe you should take up snake charming as a side hobby, huh?  
> Mc: [being manhandled by a giant lonely naga] _very funny_ Daryl


	7. Webs (HT!Skider Sans x Reader)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was a commission from the lovely scallopedsuitcase on Tumblr! Skider Skull, someone we haven't seen yet~ I hope you enjoy!

It seemed only fitting that there should be a full moon on halloween night. It bugged you, ever-so-slightly, that the moon wasn’t  _ actually _ full... there was a sliver of it missing, just a lick of shadow on what otherwise could’ve been a perfectly round orb of light in the sky. But hey- either way, it didn’t make much difference to your journey. Although it would’ve been  _ nicer  _ to walk in a  _ full  _ moon, the fact that it was pretty much almost full meant you still had a lot of light to go by, and it allowed you to take the route without blinding yourself with a flashlight.

... Besides. It was just... better to travel this path while drawing as little attention to yourself as possible. Especially considering what lurked out there, within the woods.

You tucked your coat a little bit tighter around yourself, body only  _ just  _ accustomed to the autumn chill that pervaded the clear night, trying to keep your pace unhurried despite your dislike of this stretch of road between work and home. There were many benefits to living somewhere quieter- this was  _ not  _ one of them. The path you had to take cut directly through the forest; as such, it was bordered on both sides by tall looming trees that were  _ overflowing _ with darkness and life and sounds. A veritable wall of moving shadows that you didn’t dare spare more than a glance into for fear of seeing something you couldn’t unsee... if you just kept your eyes forward and your breath steady you’d be home before you knew it, like every other night.

_ You usually didn’t take this path alone.  _ Your neck was cold, you’d forgotten your scarf in your rush.  _ You usually had people to share the walk with- company, in the dark, to stop your fear from getting too out of hand. Tonight, you had picked up the strange feeling of being watched... a feeling you ignored, deciding you were just being unnecessarily paranoid. _

... You came to a familiar section of the walk. An area where it tightened into a ‘bottleneck’ of sorts, where the forest bled over the path... it really couldn’t have been that much ground, but the tightness of the path and the unevenness of the earth slowed your walking pace down significantly to where traversing that little section could take you several minutes. It didn’t help that when it was dark, the leaves knitting over the sky made it almost impossible to tell which way you were going if you didn’t keep your eyes on the exit.

You stepped over a particularly large root that jutted over the path, moving under the cover of the trees. You’d never had a problem with it before and you weren’t planning on starting to now... your footsteps sounded all-too-loud on the dry and lightly frosted forest floor, each crunch akin to a gunshot, but there was nothing else you could do.

_ Just stay focused. Eyes forward. _

You felt a horrible chill of dread but you pushed on, moving branches out of your face, using sections of trees as support when you had to step over things. It was so dark, harder and harder to see...

...

You paused.

...

Why was it so quiet?

For the first time in the journey you looked somewhere that wasn’t straight on. You paused and turned, glancing around between the trees, then up into the canopy, then back into the trees again... your brow furrowed.

... It was _ dead silent. _

Everything had stopped. All the rustling, all the tiny squeaks and distant hoots, all the noise of an active forest at night. It had all gone quiet. There was nothing in the air, nothing around you... just empty, cold silence punctuated only by your confused breaths that left dissipating trails of steam.

_... _

It felt wrong. So, so wrong. You clenched your jaw as another small chill ran up your spine.  _ That’s... odd. _

... You swallowed, continuing onward. Perhaps... either you or some other woodland creature had frightened the forest into going quiet for a little.  _ Just ignore it, you’ll be fine.  _ One step at a time, placing each foot, despite your positive urging in your head you were walking with a new kind of slow cautiousness...  _ like you were trying to avoid being heard. _ You were going as silently as you possibly could, but your pulse was starting to jump, something inside you was beginning to nag to pick up the pace,  _ pick up the pace...  _

It felt as if the forest was pressing in on you. You could hardly see anything anymore, you didn’t know if the moon had gone behind a cloud or if the trees had just thickened, it was so dark... you could hardly make out the tree branches before they swiped at your face.

... The hairs on the back of your neck started to prickle. 

...

**_Crunch._ **

_ A single, heavy sound behind you broke the silence. _

You stopped dead, spinning and staring behind you with eyes like a startled rabbit. Numb fear washed over you-  _ what the  _ hell  _ was that? _

It wasn’t just your neck hairs that were prickling now;  _ everything _ was prickling, your arms and legs and cheeks, eyes straining to try and make something out. Whatever made that noise, it sounded large, too large to just be some kind of animal making a mad scramble once you’d passed it by. Something had come down  _ hard _ on the earth- something  _ strong. _

...

You couldn’t feel your fingers or toes. After what felt like an eternity staring into the dark trying to see  _ something, _ you forced yourself to tear your eyes away and turn around, moving forward with even  _ more _ urgency than before, your breath starting to shake when it escaped. At this point it wasn’t up to you anymore to decide the speed you walked at, your body had taken control and was moving you with a level of haste it didn’t have earlier. It was only once you’d gone a significant distance that you took a moment to look around...

... Only to realise you’d moved off the path. You didn’t recognise any of this... you couldn’t see the exit, you couldn’t see the entrance. 

You’d turned, like an idiot, and gone  _ straight into the woods. _

“N-no, no,  _ fuck...” _ You breathed. That creeping, sickening sense of dread was blanketing over you, alongside a wave of goosebumps- smothering your mind and making the cold shaking in your hands even  _ worse. _ It was still so eerily, so  _ creepily  _ silent...

_ I’m lost. I’m lost and it’s dark and freezing... _

...

Another crunch behind you that  _ immediately  _ turned your head. Softer, this time, but too similar to the previous to not cause you immediate alarm- and the distance between you and the noise hadn’t changed.  _ Meaning it’d followed you. _

... Part of you wanted to call out. Part of you wanted to ask who was there, sound out and demand an answer. But you couldn’t, you just  _ couldn’t...  _ your throat was glued shut, tongue pressed firmly against the roof of your mouth as you slowly walked backward... your gaze stuck on the area where the noise had come from.

...

And then you stepped in something.

It felt like... stepping onto cling film. Taught but thin, flexing as your foot pressing down through it, your panic-sharpened ears catching a strange  _ stretching  _ noise, and something that sounded akin to wool being pulled apart.

...

You went to lift the leg again.

_ It didn’t move. _

Before you could stop yourself, your other foot stumbled onto the material- you tried to tug both feet but they were stuck  _ fast.  _ Like you were standing on  _ glue; _ you let out a tiny terrified cry and tried to pull again and  _ again, _ you flailed blindly with your hands trying to find something to hold on to to hopefully anchor yourself, but there was  _ nothing- _

... Behind you. 

Your whole body acted as if it’d been dunked in ice water, your heart stopping in your chest.

... There was something behind you. You didn’t know how you knew... but you _ knew. _

You knew you weren’t alone.

...

... You could hear it moving toward you.  _ Oh no, oh no no no...  _ feet on the ground, it had more than two legs... 

_... And then breath. Deep breathing too, coming closer. You couldn’t even blink, you couldn’t feel anything, you were just a deer in headlights, dazed and paralysed as the distance between it and you became smaller and smaller and smaller. _

...

It stopped just behind you, whatever it was. Only a few steps away...

... And then the moon came out. 

It leaked between the foliage, creating blotches of blue light on the ground and revealing the world around you to your desperate eyes; the trees emerged, the ground emerged, and light splayed on what you were standing on. The ground you’d stumbled into was  _ completely  _ covered in something, a static fog... it resembled thousands of long, thin, intercrossing silvery strands that all gently shimmered in the ethereal midnight glow, reflecting a soft rainbow.

... _Spiderwebs._ Your stomach dropped, leaving a void behind. It was _spiderwebs._

And on top of it, curving around from behind you... was a single spider monster leg, longer than you were tall. Moonlight glancing off a scarred and thick carapace.

... A wash of hot breath flowed over the side of your face and neck, it shut down every single thought in your mind except the echoing cry of  _ I’m going to die. _ Your heartbeat was so loud in your ears it was getting hard to concentrate on anything else.

...

It spoke. Up against your ear, voice  _ inhumanly  _ low and deep.

**_“there you are...”_ **

You distinctly heard and  _ felt _ a long, slow inhale, so close to you that wisps of hair caught and flowing in his direction.

_ He’s going to eat me. _

_... _

Something pressed against the side of your neck, and for just a second, you broke free of your terrified paralysis- but you were too late to even move away. You felt a horrible  _ pierce _ in two spots on your neck and a  _ shock _ of pain radiated out from the area, half a tiny strangled scream escaping your mouth... the other half cutting out into a wheezed breath when the pain immediately dissipated, replaced with...

...  _ Warmth.  _

It flooded through your body, like you’d been laid in a pleasant hot bath. From the very centre of your chest to the tips of your frozen fingers and toes, heat and a faint  _ tingling  _ sensation wrapped you up... it took ahold of the fear in your mind and melted it like sun on a frozen waterfall until it all just...

... Washed away.

... Your eyes closed  _... This feels nice...  _

The fuzzy, warm tingling spread through your head... the world started to blur a little...

.... blur a  _ lot... _

...

You fell asleep very quickly. So quickly that you fell backwards into waiting skeletal arms... so quickly you missed the soft, emotional whisper of your captor.

_ “finally...” _

\---

...

... You could... hear slow scuttling. Something large and many-legged moving cautiously across a floor. The sound woke you up, gradually, pulling you out of pleasant unconsciousness... what a  _ strange  _ sound...

...

You were so comfy. So comfy, so  _ warm...  _ you didn’t want to move an inch from whatever you were wrapped in. Snuggled in, safe... you wiggled your toes and fingers to locate them, turning your head slightly in order to blearily open your eyes and look upward.

...

The ceiling looked... odd. You weren’t sure if it was just your eyes adjusting but it looked... soft? Reflective? That wasn’t your ceiling at all... you squinted, making a little halfhearted ‘huh’ sound, still trying to figure out if you had reason to be confused or not.

... When you turned your head to the side, the first thing you noticed was that your neck  _ hurt. _ But not in a stinging way- it hurt in a more ‘feel asleep weird and got a crick in it’ way. Or a ‘exercised for the first time in a while yesterday, and now you’re feeling the aftermath’ way. An ache, akin to a bruise. 

The second thing you noticed was that your nose wasn’t met with open space. It was met with a smooth, somewhat  _ squishy  _ flat surface. 

You blinked in confusion- it felt like... well,  _ felt. _ The textile material; soft to the touch. You didn’t understand where you were at  _ all _ and you shuffled, moving as best you could, grabbing onto the edges of the material to pull yourself upward enough to sit without sliding back down again and as you did it felt like there was nothing  _ under _ whatever you were in.

... Your bed also...  _ swung...? _ It definitely threw you for a loop until you sat up properly and your foggy head connected the dots of what it was feeling and seeing.

... It was a  _ hammock. _

You’d been laying in a big, white hammock that was affixed to the ceiling at two points. Your legs were completely  _ covered  _ in blankets, there were so many that some were spilling over the edge and threatening to fall out onto the floor... you’d  _ really _ been buried in there, almost... tucked in.

...

You turned to look around at the rest of the room. It was... a cave? A pretty decently sized one, with rounded walls and a slightly sloping floor. Whoever owned the cave seemed to be very fond of blankets because the entire floor was covered in them- of seemingly every shape and size, quality and thickness and colour, turning the ground into one giant soft carpet of patterns.

...

Oh.  _ And every inch of visible floor, wall and ceiling was covered in webbing. _

That was the mystery material the hammock was made of- highly compressed webs. That’s why the walls and ceiling were white and had a strange soft rainbow-ish quality to them; the silvery strands reflected the light and created a misted mirror-like sheen across them. There was only one creature that made a den like this; a skider. You were in the  _ middle  _ of it.

... He was there, in the centre of the room. You hadn’t noticed at first... but you did now, frozen like a rabbit. The skider himself, his back to you.

... A skeleton from head to pelvis, with the legs and abdomen of a giant spider, he spared no expense in the terror department. He was likely the largest skider you’d  _ ever  _ seen, a towering creature, a _ beast.  _ His spider body was ever-so-slightly furry and a dulled red and black... two of the most worrying colours to see on a predator.

... But your eyes were drawn to two things. Firstly, the giant crack in his skull... a gaping hole, a void, it looked  _ wrong _ and  _ painful. _ But mostly...

... The things  _ embedded  _ in him.

All across the expanse of his huge spider abdomen, almost half a dozen weapons were firmly lodged into the exoskeleton. Two daggers were in so deeply you could only see their severely rusted handles, a sword with less than half the blade visible, and the fletching of a crossbow bolt... and that was only what you could see from where you were sat, a distance from him. He was truly monstrous, a thing of nightmares...

...

So why didn’t you feel scared?

... He turned, looking at you, giving you a clearer view of the chasm in his skull. You saw the curved venom fangs on his heavy jaw, you saw his single red orb eyelight and the way it constricted when it landed on you... You saw the way he moved toward you, those giant legs crossing the distance between you in a matter of moments, the jittery arachnid-like manner he moved that  _ should’ve  _ caused a horrifying amount of panic in you...

...

But you felt... no fear? Even when he was so close his massive hands could reach out and touch you, one of them curling around the edge of the hammock, palms bigger than your face. Even when you had to crane your neck up to look him in the eye.

...

“h-hello.” He said, breath and voice soft, with a gentle quiver to it. Your lips parted a little, his deep whispery voice... triggering a memory of the night before.

... You were looking up at him incredulously. You had  _ no  _ idea what to say. ... Should you ask who he _was?_ Ask why he was keeping you alive? Ask why he bit you last night? Why he’s taken you into his den and piled you under blankets in a hammock when you’d clearly be a perfectly sized snack for him? Why he was talking to you gently, why he was hunching a little to be closer to your eye level and appear less threatening?

“... You...  _ bit  _ me.” You spoke like a child reciting a math question they didn’t understand.

... His huge iris shifted to the side a little. Was he... ashamed, or something? 

“... yeah. s... sorry...”

... That wasn’t a word you ever expected to hear from a monster like him. Especially when said with such... gentleness? Such genuinity? You were so  _ confused. _

“... Does skider venom stop you from feeling afraid?” You asked, searching for an explanation.

“yes.”

“... Oh. When does it wear off?”

... One of his massive hands reached out... you felt a twinge of hesitancy, but you didn’t flinch, nor move away from him. It felt like someone you’d known for a long time was just leaning in to touch your face. He ran two giant sharp phalanges from your crown to just behind your ear, brushing away hair and leaving a trail of prickling goosebumps... The other hand moved down to the blankets over your legs and pulled them up a little, tucking them better.

... Your cheeks... prickled. 

“... wore off... hours ago.” He said, softly. 

What.  _ “... Huh?” _

“... you’re not scared, because... soulmates." His eyelight was shaking at the edges. "we’re... we’re soulmates.”

...

_ Soulmates with a Skider? _

... Despite having just tucked you in, your slack-jawed expression that apparently perfectly conveyed the swirling confusion and utter empty-headed shock you felt seemed to awaken something in him because he leant in, so close you let out a tiny gasp because your cheek was  _ inches _ from his collarbone and he was  _ surrounding _ you... giant arms tucked under you and lifted you clear out of the hammock, blankets and all. You instinctively gripped onto his ribcage, making another little noise that was probably an attempt at verbalisation... he was carrying you like a princess and he smelt so  _ nice, _ like deep forests and sturdy old cottages that withstood stormy winds no matter what...

“i know... it’s a lot...” His cheekbones were tinged with blue when you looked up at him, the proximity of his fanged smile to your face eliciting an  _ entirely _ different, much more  _ fluttery _ response in your chest to what you expected. “a lot for me too. o... overwhelming. just... relax. let it sink in. i’ll... get us... some food.”

... All you could say was a soft, floored ‘ok’ as he carried you away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Skull: im just a soft boy, dont be scared, i never did no violence or no wrong  
> Mc: What's that on the floor?  
> Skull: [kicking the mysteriously bone-like object away with one back leg] haha what's what


End file.
